The Last Days of Grace
by semiiramiis
Summary: Part one. If you're going to read the four that state they have parts, start with this one! A young noble woman is sent to Stratholme to catch the Prince's eye, and gets more than she bargained for. Lore irreverent!
1. Chapter 1

I am Clarimonde, the firstborn of my father, Aaron De Nemesio. That would have been tolerable enough, I suppose, had the second born of my father been male. But there was no other, no male heir for the line that had served Lordaeron for generations, only me. And I was hardly a fitting holder for such a name, born small, pale, easily overlooked. Obviously the only answer was that I make as prestigious a match as possible, bring my father a son in law to rival the spirit of a son never born. So it was, when I hit fourteen, that my would be suitors started showing up, and I learned a harsh lesson. Nobility of blood did not necessarily guarantee nobility of a man. So many grand names…it was heartening on some level, that the men that bore them were as poor in quality as I was. But I wanted more. Why settle for these, when I felt I could have better? There had to be better out there.

"Another gone?" My father questioned when I saw one away, and I dropped my eyes to the floor. This had gone on a year, and his patience grew thin. "Clarimonde." He breathed, and I steeled myself for the coming confrontation, running through my options like fingerlings ran through a net. There had to be someone else, someone… _better_.

"He is scrawny. Weedy." I noted slowly. "I am scrawny, weedy. Bad for the line."

My father shifted uneasily in his chair. He had problems rebutting arguments so obviously true. "We are running out of options, Clarimonde. Who else _is _there?"

A name leapt into my mind, and I considered it cautiously. It could bring trouble, but it could bring salvation, or at least a stay… "Arthas." I stated, amazed at the level calm of my own voice.

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and I was surprised he didn't laugh immediately. "Arthas?" He questioned slowly. "Arthas….Menethil?"

"I know of no other." I agreed, passing to the window and staring out of it. Night spread from the shadows of the trees outside, an eerie and disturbing sight, but my mind was on my father not such childish fancies.

"_Prince _Arthas Menethil?" His voice was still steady, and it still lacked derision. Maybe I was on to something here? I did not bother to reply…obviously there was only one Arthas Menethil. The prince. "The boy is promised." He mused, and I tilted my head. My mother ate rumors like a pig slopped at a trough. She told me he was promised… but not committed.

"As a wiser soul than myself noted once, such promises mean little to a young man." Those were my father's own words, the words his warning to not let those young men who courted me to become too friendly without a priest and a ring. "She is merely an admiral's daughter, fine for now…"

He moved to the window beside me, but his gaze was not trained outside, but on my face. "You'd go so far?" He asked, leaning against the casement. "You'd _push _for Arthas?" Me, Queen of Lordaeron…. It was a laughable idea, except that he wasn't laughing. For the first time, he was listening to me. Considering me. I wasn't a joke.

"It would be worth the try." Rumors told me Arthas was fair to the eye. Told me he was close to my age, not some decrepit specimen hoping to stave off death by getting children on me.

My father rested a hand on my shoulder, silent. "Arthas Menethil." He finally breathed, and I knew I had him then. All the others would go away. I had fixed the idea in his mind, and now, only the king's son would be good enough. I only prayed that I would agree.

"Proudmoore's daughter has gone to training." He mused thoughtfully, "In Dalaran."

I raised a brow. Dalaran was far, and trained only one thing…mages. Such training was intensive, great in depth and scope, if she had any talent for it. She could be gone for years… "And the prince?"

"Trains with the Silver Hand, at Stratholme."

I nodded slowly, locking my teeth together to keep my face bland. If he trained with the Hand, then the prince could not be grossly fat. Or painfully weedy.

My father spun a length of my hair through his fingers. "How far are you willing to go with this?"

"Is he as fair as they say?" I finally demanded, and my father barked in laughter.

"Aye, little one. He is as fair as they say. Fair to the eye. Fair in name and blood. And a fair sort. You are correct, you can do no better."

"Then I will do what must be done." Whatever the hell _that _was. I was pretty much making this up as I went along…

"Arthas is in training with the Hand." He smoothed my hair down my back. "The Hand will keep him away from Court, away from such things. The only way you can get close to him now…. Is to go into the Hand yourself."

I blinked. The Hand trained paladins. Giant, resolute men charged with the defense of Lordaeron. Not….me. "Yes…." He nodded, his mind obviously carrying on, while mine mired down. "Of course. You are my only child. There is no boy for the Hand to train. Even if you do not become a paladin, there is much for them to teach you. It does work, Clarimonde."

It did? I gave him a tentative smile. At the worst, it would get me away from Brill, and away from him. It couldn't be all bad…. If Arthas wasn't all he was supposed to be, I could always fail.

"Then…" My father nodded slowly. "We must prepare you for this. If you mean to go after Arthas, things must be done, and better than your mother must do them."

I squashed the grin that rose to my face. My mother had succeeded in turning me out well enough for here, kept on my father's provincial estates, but not well enough to count me among those with a chance at a prince….no, _the _Prince. There would be gowns and _teachers_ now…. Much better teachers than those hired to make me suitable so far. There would be books, more than the dozen or so here at the house. The Menethil family was well bred and well read, I would need to be both to aspire to this. I needed to be able to hold my own against the best that Lordaeron offered, against an unseen young woman counted good enough to go to Dalaran while I basked in exile in Brill. I let some of the grin free, meeting my father's eyes.

"Aye, little one." He breathed. "It will be expensive."

The grin died on the vine as I watched him. Money… such a harsh reality… but he did seem as put off by the prospect as I was expecting. "Well spent." I murmured. Even if I failed to fish up Arthas Menethil, such training would put me on a level with those young ladies of nobility raised in Lordaeron's court. I was his only, my entire future rested in the marriage I would make. It was only right he spend the same money on me that he would have on a boy heir who had never materialized.

"I do not understand." My mother groused as the tailor scrutinized me as I stood in the golden light of Brill's noontime. "You have gowns plenty."

The tailor only squinted, ignoring her and picking up the heavy plait of my hair. It hung in his hand, and he turned it to the light, then stared into my eyes, before nodding briskly. He left, returning with heavy bolts of fabric fresh from Lordaeron, rolling them out before me.

"No." My mother disagreed. "None of those. They are not suitable. All the young ladies wear lighter colors. Paler colors. Not… those."

Those… deep, rich colors of amethyst, wine, and the darkening leaves of autumn. Those colors best with my shining chestnut hair and violet eyes… warm, unlike the frosty chill pastels favored by the young _blonde _ladies of court this season. Arthas's promised was said to be blonde, and I grimaced. "No." I stated, touching my fingers to one of the bolts. "This… will do nicely." To stand out from the herd, I could not _follow _fashion. I must set it. The tailor's gaze met mine and he smiled conspiratorially, his hands moving of their own volition as he chose bolts seemingly at random. I gazed at his choices, and nodded agreeably. Seemed random, was hardly so. It would have taken me half an hour or more to settle on them, and he shuffled them out like cards.

"Clarimonde." My mother hissed, and I finally graced her with my gaze.

"Yes, my mother?" I asked.

"Your dance master is to be here in an hour." She grated out the words. "And after, you are to choose a horse and begin riding lessons. Then a music instructor. Do you believe money falls from the sky?"

"_Father _chooses to spend his own money." If I was a boy, I would have had tutors, riding instructors, arms instructors. Harnesses of armor, and a fine blade. It might be coming late, but it was still coming to me, and I was in no mood to hear my mother complain about it. I _deserved _this.

So I learned how to dance, and I was good at it. And ride, and yes, I was good at that too. Sing, and play an instrument… and still, I was good at it. Card, dice, and games of strategy…those I was not just _good _at. I excelled. Gowns came, in warm tones, not as many as I'd been expecting and my mother had feared, but the reason for that came quickly enough. For I was to have that harness of armor and fine blade as well, a lethal length of shining sword that sang in my hand when I cautiously lifted it.

My father stared at me as I admired it, pensive and dark as he'd been lately. He was falling from the King's favor, a move from him that endangered this entire venture. What he had done, I was not certain, but he spent less and less time at the Capital City, and more and more time at home. This was a not a welcome turn of events for any at the estate, and I yearned to be away. "We travel to Stratholme tomorrow." He finally stated. "You will not be returning with me, so pack all, Clarimonde."

My mother looked scandalized, her mouth half open as she tried to form a response, any response, to those words. "Aaron!" She wailed, but he ignored her, his eyes on me. I nodded. Yes, it was time to start this.


	2. Ch2StratholmeWelcome to the Order

Sunlight flowed over Stratholme as I followed my father through its fair streets. The glory of Northern Lordaeron… I had never been to it before, and I stared. Such a wondrous place, filled with shining white buildings with blue tiled roofs. So much to see, so many new people… At home, I knew everybody and everything. Here, no. My father paused, and slowly reached back and pulled me forward. "Little one." He breathed, turning my head in his great hands until my eyes fell on a young man standing on the corner before us. He had shoulder length dark blond hair, clean, unfettered. His face was narrow, canny…with expressive lips and luminous, feline green eyes. He was slender, but not fragile. He was, in a word, beautiful. "Come." My father ordered when words failed me, and he pulled me across the cobbled street in his wake, headed straight for the young man.

He waited until he had pulled up beside him, before inclining his head in the barest bow. "Your highness." He said, low, his voice carrying no further than the three of us, and I felt my eyes widen. Highness…made this….

"Lord Aaron." The young man….Arthas…. greeted, his smile genuine, tilting his eyes upwards at the corners. "What brings you from my father's side?"

A hand on the small of my back, pushing me slightly forward, and I stood to my full height. It was time to play this hand… "Your highness, my daughter… Clarimonde. Clarimonde, Prince Arthas."

I managed a smile. How, I'm not quite certain, but I did. And it wasn't a mouse smile, but a dimple carving smile as I eyed him through my lashes. Oh, yes. This was entirely what I was looking for. Taking my clue from my father, who obviously did not want a scene, I refrained from the curtsey which had been trained into me and met his eyes instead. Yes, leave this comfortable, leave it informal.

"She comes to the Hand for training, my prince." My father continued. "As I lack a male heir, there are things the Order should teach her."

Those eyes fell on me, measuring. "So young, Lord Aaron?" The prince asked, and my heart plummeted. Small, fragile, I had always looked a handful of years younger than I actually was… and it was counting against me again. If I let his attention slide, I was doomed….

"No, your highness." My voice was one of my better features, and to play it, I could not remain the silent one. "I am seventeen." Only two years his junior, well old enough for this. And by the time he was done with his training, in two years, he would be twenty two, I would be nineteen.

"My pardon, Lady…Clarimonde." He bowed gracefully to me. "Such a lovely name, for a lovely young lady." There was nothing false in his words, or his eyes. "I look forward to seeing you again. Lord Aaron…good day." He moved away, under my father's stare.

"Not bad, little one." My father granted when he was well out of ear shot. "Not bad at all."

"That is Arthas." I mused, and he nodded. That was Terenas Menethil's only son, crown heir to Lordaeron. "Then yes, my father. We play this game."

My father bowed to me then, deeply. "Yes, my daughter." He agreed easily. "We play this game."

"Lord Aaron." The words were wary, and their speaker regarded my father much as I would a multi legged creature crawling on ground before me, right before I raised a foot to crush it. "What brings you to the Hand?"

"Uther." There was an unfitting nonchalance under my father's words, by not granting this man an honorific of some sort, he had done wrong. I stared at the man in question; he was tall, towering over me and my father. Heavily muscular, with a bristling ginger mustache and glowering eyes, he carried himself like he missed the armor he was not wearing. "You said once…" Every time my father used that phrase, it was the opening of his using another's forgotten statements against them. "That if I had an heir, anyone, especially the Hand, would be better to raise it than myself."

Harsh words, plainly spoken. A paladin's words. "I did." The man agreed to his ownership of them easily enough. "Somewhere along the way, your blood has faltered."

My father smiled. That, I knew, was a dangerous smile for those around him. That was the smile he wore when he beat the dogs. The horses. The servants. His family. Me, and indeed, he reached back and pulled me forward by the back of my neck, his grasp painful. The other man stilled at the display, his expression calming, his hand opening over his hip, where a weapon should rest, but didn't. "Very well, then, Uther." His voice was still pleasant, but I managed to not cringe, raising eyes to the man. "_This _is my heir. My only born." He all but pushed me into the man's side. I stumbled, and was gracefully and gently caught, cradled against him. I could feel his measured breathing, the beat of his heart. "Raise her from here as you see fit. I relinquish her to the Hand's custody, _your _custody. Her possessions are in the courtyard." I could not see, held to the stranger's shoulder, but I heard my father's boot heels grind as he stalked from the room, punctuated by the slam of the door behind him.

"It's all right, lass." The stranger murmured. "He is gone, and I'll see him removed from our grounds if he does not leave quickly enough for my liking." His hands were gentle as he peeled me from his side and held me at arms length away from him. The glower in his eyes was gone with my father's retreat; they were calm, level, kind. "I am Uther Lightbringer. You are?"

I had feared that from the beginning. How many Uthers could there be in the Hand? My father had chosen to throw me at the proverbial feet of the Order's leader, the greatest of them all. "Clarimonde." I breathed. "De Nemesio."

He nodded, moving to the window of the office he'd chosen to meet us in, and I knew his view overlooked the courtyard that my father would have to depart through. "Welcome to Stratholme, Clarimonde." He breathed, "As you have been freely given to me, you are now mine. My ward. We will see to the details later, after you've been settled and had time to calm down after that…." His words faded and the glower returned, focused clearly on the courtyard below him. My father had obviously become visible.

Uther spun away from the window, surprising me with his speed, and stalked by me, throwing the door open. "Arthas!" He barked into the cavernous corridors beyond. There was a long moment of silence, then the sound of heels, moving quickly without running. _He _appeared cat graceful in the doorway. "Yes, sir?" He inquired, and Uther grimaced.

"This." He motioned at me, and Arthas's luminous green eyes moved to me. "Is…."

"Clarimonde de Nemesio." Arthas filled in the blank when Uther paused. "Lord Aaron's heiress, I believe. From Brill."

"I was not aware he had a child." Uther's attention was on neither one of us, he'd withdrawn to the darkened northern corner of his office, his gaze without. "Or I would perhaps have not been so…abrupt in telling him he was unfit to raise one."

The blandly correct face that Arthas had gained upon seeing me faltered somewhat, his brows rose in a question. "Aaron wails that he has no _heir_." Arthas murmured cautiously. "Not that he has no child. He pines…no…lusts after other men's sons. You told him he was not fit…sir?"

Uther sighed. "I did. He has chosen to take me at that word and give his only born to my custody. You have met her before?"

"We have been…introduced. Recently. Why would he give her over like this?"

I really wished they'd stop speaking of me as if I weren't even in the same room, but that question dragged Uther's attention from the window casement and back to me. "The King would not touch my ward." He muttered, his expression darkening.

Arthas nodded. "And you would hold her estates in trust. You opened the door, and he pushed her through it. Brilliantly done, I would assume. You told him the Hand would be better to raise an heir, and when gets himself in trouble he's not getting out of, he takes that and runs with it. You become his only heir's guardian. Hold her estates in trust, and my father will not seize them."

"I've been played." Uther noted, and I suddenly wished I could become even smaller than I already was. My father had manipulated _Uther Lightbringer _into volunteering to raise me. I hugged my shoulders, contemplating the patterns of the rug on the floor. _Let me out of here_.

A hand on my shoulder, its weight and positioning meant it had to belong to Arthas. "It's going to be just fine….Clarimonde."

"Thank you, your highness." I managed, fighting back true tears. This was not what I had volunteered for. I had volunteered to try for Arthas, still secure as my father's heiress. Not thrown away to the Hand like some unwanted luggage. My father had done something heinous enough to endanger the most precious thing we possessed, the family estates. Terenas would not seize lands without justification….

"Lass." Uther sighed. "It's no fault of yours… Boy, what is that face for?"

"Uther. You are a great paladin. A mighty warrior. But you are terrible at this." Arthas chuckled, pulling me back into him and resting the arm around my shoulders. "Everything is just fine." He murmured into my ear. "Some wine, some sleep, some food and a hot bath, and it will look better in the morning. I promise."

He smelled of horses, straw, and sunshine…I barely managed an agreeable nod. Those all did sound good…. Not as good as this moment was, but I wasn't a position to be picky. "Yes, your highness."

"And, please. Call me Arthas."

"Yes…. Arthas."

He made good on his promises… honeyed wine, a good meal, a hot bath and a deep feather bed in one of the Order's guest rooms. I needed to pick up the pieces of what my father had left me with, but that would wait until the morning. Although it was still early, there was nothing left to do but throw the coverlet over my head and let sleep rescue me. It would be better in the morning.

It might be better in the morning, but it certainly did not _look _better. It was gloomy when I opened my eyes, a thick fog pressed against the mullioned windows that overlooked the same courtyard my father had fled out of. It was chilled, as well. Summer was ending and Stratholme was farther north than Brill. I had failed to bank the coals, and the fire had burned itself dead. "Bah." I grumbled, gazing around. My trunks had been left in the outer room, untouched, and I delved in them. There was a definite lack of finery and formality in this place so far, so I chose for warmth and comfort this morning, a warm flannel chemise and plain woolen gown. I braided my hair, took a deep breath, and stepped into the hallway. It was empty beyond, and I wandered aimlessly for awhile, ignored by the young trainees as they hurried on errands.

"Clarimonde! There you are." Arthas hailed me from under the balconies that surrounded the courtyard… a landmark I had finally managed to make my way to. "Uther sent me to get you…and I found your rooms empty. Always this early a riser?"

I nodded. My father abhorred sloth, and slept little. Therefore, every one else slept little around him. "Usually."

"Ah. We are to break fast with Uther. He's had enough time to calm down, so he can decide what needs to be done now.

"As long as it doesn't involve sending me back." I stated, and he arched the brow again. Anything but back to the estates now, after that scene, I'd be lucky to survive the experience.

"Never." Arthas chuckled, easily leading his way through the compound. "Not with your father on his way down, Uther was correct when he said the Hand would be a better environment to raise you in. He just didn't expect…."

"That I existed." I stared at him. Had he known? "Many don't."

He nodded. "Lord Aaron was not always forthcoming with that information. It almost seemed as if he preferred being childless to…" he waved a disgusted hand in my direction, and I bowed my head. "Rather be childless than admitting he has a perfectly lovely daughter." He frowned. "So many would consider that a blessing. But not your father. And yes, I knew of you…. At least of your existence. The fact that your father did in fact have an heir has tempered my father's reactions to him. If your father had not forced this, then my father would have done nearly the same soon enough. Uther's ward, no. But someone's. But then, your father detests Uther, and has probably done this just to watch him squirm."

I sent him a wan smile, it was better that he thought that. Part of it was undoubtedly true, if my father had taken an active dislike to someone, and was handed an open invitation to move on that dislike, he'd take it. Uther had apparently given him that in more ways than being responsible for the young prince. "Good to see you had the sense to dress down." He continued. "Uther sets little store by court fashion."

I considered the words and their intonation. Uther was not the only one…. "I've never been to court." I pointed out the obvious, and he paused. "I have some gowns for it, just in case, but most of my things are not that fine. I dressed this morning for the weather…"

He nodded, dressed in warmth over fashion this morning himself. "Bitter and damp." He agreed, pausing outside of a door I recognized, Uther's office. "Ladies first." He chuckled, opening the door without knock or call. "Found her." He announced triumphantly to the room as I entered. Uther sat, not at his desk, but at a rough table set to the side of the room. I smelled….food. Real food…ham, eggs, potatoes, spread out before Uther.

"Sit, Lass. Eat. And we'll talk. You too, boy. As fast as you're growing, we need to keep some meat on those bones."

I sat on his left, while Arthas took the seat across from me, serving himself from the platter of ham without word or ceremony. It was odd, to sit at this plain table, with the crown prince before me, and the greatest knight of the realm beside me, and both seemed content to serve themselves. "My apologies for yesterday, Lass." Uther said, taking the platter. "Your father…caught me off guard. I was angry with him, not you. I'm guessing that was as much a surprise to you as it was to me, then?"

"Yes." It would have been my answer, but it was Arthas's word. "What exactly _did _your father tell you was the reason for you to come to Stratholme?"

_You. _The word breathed in my mind, and was banished. That was dangerous. "My father told me I was to come to the Hand for training." _Do not lie to the Paladin of the Light. _"To be a better heir. That he had taught me all that could be taught at the estates."

"So. Not entirely a lie, and not entirely the truth." The platter made its way to me, and I eyed it. I was hungry, starving, but my father frowned on that. Women were supposed to be delicate, and I had _Arthas _across from me, close enough to reach out and touch. But…that same prince was throwing propriety to the wind… I snagged one of the larger remaining pieces of the ham. I added some potatoes swimming in butter, the heel of the loaf of bread and eggs, and proceeded to eat. Uther did not pay that any mind and Arthas only snorted a laugh. "Well, she _eats _like a paladin." He grinned, and Uther glanced at my plate.

"Little thing like that needs to eat more." The great paladin grumbled. "So. Your father told you were to come to us to train with the Hand, not be dropped off in my lap."

"Exactly." The food was wonderful, and yes, as promised, the morning was better than the night before. "My father had a harness of armor made, a sword, purchased a horse… Everything I was led to believe was that I was coming here to learn what he could not teach me."

"A sword? A horse? Armor? You were under the impression that you came to us as an initiate?"

"Maybe the man has finally given up on his male heir." Arthas shrugged, "And decided to see the heir he does have trained as she should have been. Eight generations of service, and he desecrates the name."

The ham, just moments before sweet and smoky, went wooden in my mouth. "My father fought for Lordaeron." I breathed. He had, when the Horde had run over the lands… I remembered it vaguely, pulled from my bed in the dark of night and rushed to the Capital. The terror, the palpable rush and panic, held before my father on the withers of his horse. He'd been there, with our men, when the Horde came to the very walls of the Capital, and were turned back. He'd returned, bleeding, bruised, and picked me up… held me close…. _"All safe now, little one…" _

"Aye, he did, lass. On the walls of the Capital. And you have the look of one who remembers that day." Uther said, and the look in his eyes marked him as one who did as well. Of course he did, he'd fought then.

"I was in the Capital. The estates were deemed too indefensible, so we pulled back to Lordaeron when the Crown gave the evacuation orders." Only the capital had stood against the assault… the manor and lands that comprised my father's estates would have been destroyed in a heartbeat had it gone that far.

"And that day, the Light shone on us all." Uther stated. "So both of you were in the walls that day." He glanced between us, Arthas silent as I was, before reaching out a hand to smooth my hair. "What we fought for…. You, Lass. And the boy. And all the others just like you. And you're right, your father stood. Eat. You were hungry."

"My father has done something wrong."

They glanced between each other; obviously they'd expected that I knew it already. "He's been skimming the royal coffers." Arthas finally stated. "The only reason he hasn't been arrested for it yet was you. My father was trying to decide what was best served with you… you are unmarried. Sheltered. There would have been a guardian, soon."

"And my mother?" I turned my attention back to the food. At least someone was finally having an adult and blunt discussion with me about this.

"Will be seen to by the Crown." Arthas stated. "She has no other family but you and your father."

"Fair enough. And me?"

"You have come to us in the belief that you were to be an initiate." Uther shook his head. "Your reasons to be here should remain unchanged…"

It was all I could do to keep from looking straight at Arthas, but I managed to keep my eyes on Uther. "And it would serve you well, I think." He continued, oblivious. "Even if you do not swear to the Order, we have much to teach. Lordaeron needs its young, both male and female, to be strong, able sorts. With blade, word, law, and heart. I am not your father, lass. But I would be honored to be the guardian I agreed to be. To raise you here, in the heart of Stratholme."

"Thank you, Lord Uther."

"Uther, lass. Or sir, if you go into the Order. No lords here." He glanced at me. "Nor ladies either. Brothers and sisters…"

I nodded… although _sister _was the last label I wanted Arthas to consider me as. That, however, paled with the situation my father had left me. Wisdom dictated I step back from that, and make my way in my new household as best as possible.

"So. We test you and see where you stand, lass. You mentioned a harness and a blade. Go and get them on. Nothing like a chill day to work up a sweat."

I nodded, returning to my room to change into the unfamiliar armor. I felt stupid and ungraceful as I stepped back into the hallway and made my way back to Uther's office. Arthas had changed into armor as well, and his eyes narrowed as he saw me. "Your father's taste in armor is fine." He noted slowly, and I sighed. I was obviously wearing some of the money my father was accused of absconding with, and I had no defense for that. Uther just shook his head, grabbed the armor at the shoulders, and shook.

"The armor is indeed fine." He grumbled, choosing to not rise to Arthas's comment. "But worn wrong." He cinched the straps down tighter, as tight as they'd go. "I take it your father did not see fit for any sort of martial training…"

"My father told me none could teach me that as the Hand could. All he'd do was teach me wrong, and you'd have to break my habits. I was taught other things."

Uther nodded. "Undoubtedly fine things for a well bred young lady." He said, giving the armor another yank. "But not for my ward. I assume those trunks are full of fine things for a well bred young lady?"

"Yes."

Unharnessed amusement touched Arthas's expression at those words. He dropped his chin in a half hearted attempt to hide his grin. "You'll get them returned at a later date." He said in a sing song. "Uther will go through them and decide what is useable and store what is not. You are here as an initiate of the Hand. Finery is superfluous. A strong heart is as strong garbed in common wool as in velvet. You will be issued clothing commensurate with your station here, which is the same as every other youngling. We are brothers, young prince, and you will behave as such."

At least my father wasn't here to hear that the garments would go unworn. I nodded. As long as there were no young women here not held to that same, then I was fine with it.

"Exactly." Uther agreed. "And I have been charged with the raising of both of you. And you will both be better for it; you have my word upon it."


	3. Chapter 3

Better for it…I had my doubts by that night. Uther wanted a full measure of what my father had given him, from horsemanship to archery. Both I had been considered better than competent at, Uther just beetled his brows and glowered as he studied the pattern of shafts protruding from the target. "Your accuracy is acceptable." He stated, and I sighed, fighting the urge to let my fingers tremble. "But you will not be hunting rabbits. And that would be all these would kill. But you have a grasp of archery, yes. And horsemanship. Your father is correct, it is best to send you untaught in the ways of war. You will require no…unteaching." His glance fell to Arthas, who only twisted his lips in a wry smile. Obviously he'd not been that lucky, a prince would have been schooled in swordsmanship from childhood. "Arthas will drill you until you are good enough for me to take over. It will do him good to teach what he has learned. That is the true measure of comprehension."

He strode off, leaving me an exhausted and filthy puddle of sweat and nerves. He was well gone before Arthas clapped me on the back. "Good job." He said, "You made it."

I stared at him blankly for a moment, too caught up in myself to catch the moment. I was just… too tired, too grimy and lost to not show it. "You've been accepted to train with us. You will be moved into the barracks, as we all are. He was quite impressed. Come on, I'll get your kit issued and give him enough time to go through your things…I hope you don't have anything too private in it."

"Um…no." At least I didn't think so. I hadn't packed it….

"Good. I just know how my sister would react to Uther going through her things like that. Never hear the end of it." He shrugged. "Let's go get your kit."

My kit. My father was not a soldier. He'd fought on the walls of Lordaeron because quite simply, there was no other choice. He knew when to fight, and that was then. He'd always had a sword and a harness because he was nobility, and noblemen had such things. So if I was to train with knights, I must need those as well. He'd had no use for shovels, fire sets, ground sheets, tents, portable tin dinnerware. I was to have all of the mundane gear of a soldier in the field and not a noble knight at his estate. My lovely harness was put away as well; it was too fine for an initiate. I would wear what all the others wore, including Arthas.

"Let's go see what Uther has left you." Arthas laughed; shouldering one of the bags I'd been given. My own hands and shoulders were full, my _kit _was everything I'd need here, bedding, clothing…had I arrived completely empty handed, I would be set to

go….right down to socks and undergarments.

"Your room." He noted, moving to a door. It was ajar, and I could hear someone within, moving. I was afraid for a moment that I would have to share, but it was only Uther when Arthas pushed the door open with his shoulder. It was obviously meant for only one, little more than a cell. The cot, chest, and small desk within took up most of the available floor space, and Uther the rest.

"Evening, Lass." He greeted easily. "Arthas calls this the checklist of confiscation… although not much of what you brought is not here. Some of your gowns are too fine for here, but I left you some pretty ones for festivals and market. You brought a great many books…" his gaze was puzzled. "Some I would like to borrow from you and have copied for our library here. Your father does not strike me as so… intellectual… a man. These you will be permitted to keep, of course." He patted the teetering pile.

"When I realized I would be here for training, I took steps to read all I could about the arts I would be facing here."

"Ah. And your apparent fascination with maps?"

"Nothing apparent at all. Maps are… the answer to most questions." My lute rested on the desk next to him and I eyed it. He saw where my eyes rested, and picked it up. His hands were too large, too great, to hold it correctly, and he obviously had no idea how to anyway, but he treated it gently, like a baby passed to him by an overzealous relative.

"You play?" He asked, and I nodded, waiting for it. Of all of my skills, it was the least martial, the one most reeking of that nobility he professed to want to take from me and replace with wool and small rooms. I was a little surprised that so simple and forthright a man would tease me with what he was about to deny me. He handed it over to me, moving to make room. "Please."

I tried its strings to make certain it had not gone out of tune during the jostling trip, while I flung around for a song. Although I was perfectly capable of the more complex songs currently en vogue in court, I struck the opening notes to an older song, a simple love song. I let my voice rise with the words, let them flow, closing my eyes to shut out Uther…and especially Arthas. I could feel both of their gazes on me, but it wasn't as unwelcome as most attention was.

I plucked the last notes and let the last plaintive word fade before opening my eyes. "I suppose you want me to put it away?" I asked, fixing my gaze on Uther's face. He had remained utterly silent, and his expression was still.

"By the Light, no, Lass." He laughed, but the laugh was false, the first falseness I had caught in him. "No, Lass." He continued, the wrong fading from his voice and stance. "That would be a right crime. We are here to _teach _you." He placed a hand over mine, where it rested on the lute's belly. "I will take nothing away that does that. Clothing teaches you nothing, I take it away so that you can be one with the Order. You have been alone for so very long, it is time you are taken in somewhere, by someone. But we do not turn from the arts; they are part and parcel of what we fight for. A graceful life, in the Light. My young ones should be civilized, because that is what they fight for. I, personally, am not gifted…my hands are large and my voice is better suited to shouting across a battlefield than to song, but my ears hear well. I just wanted to know if you honestly did play it…if it is an affectation, an item you carry because all the other little ladies have one, then I would certainly put it away."

"No, it is not an affectation. I play it quite often."

"Of course you do, and you will keep it." He nodded as if that settled it, and I supposed in this world, it did. Uther's word was law. "You seem to be quite the…gamer." He sighed, dropping the bag with my cards, bones, and dice on the table. "These… I must profess I do not like. They have done your father little good and much ill. However, since the others have been allowed to keep items of this nature, I cannot in conscience take them from you…"

I shrugged. "Take them or don't." I was under the impression that the crushing boredom of Brill was long gone.

It must have been the right answer, because he only nodded. "Welcome to the Order, Clarimonde." He smiled as he left, a smile echoed by Arthas.

"See you in the morning."

Everything hurt. I sat in the common dining hall, my forehead on the edge of the table, and contemplated what I'd managed to get myself into. Just a couple of days ago I'd been warm, garbed in finery, the only pain I could expect to experience that of lute strings. Now…

Someone sat beside me, and I was too despondent to lift my head to identify them. "You'll live." Arthas's voice.

"Maybe." I muttered in response, staring at the flagstones. I wasn't in the mood to even try to attract his interest. Jaina could have him, if the pain would just stop. If I could go home to Brill….

"Clarimonde…." He murmured, and I finally pulled my gaze up. "The Path of the Order is not easy. But this is the worst time. Let me guess, up until now, things have come very easy for you. You learn, you do, like you breathe."

"Yes."

"I thought so. And Uther will push you beyond that. He will make you struggle. He did it to me, for like you, until I came here, things were easy. But it's worth it. Fight. Be more than comes easily, and you'll stop hating yourself."

"What makes you think I hate myself?" The distraction of his words faded away some of the pain, and I was able to eat.

He shrugged, eating his own breakfast. "Simple. I took what I remembered and added what I knew of you to it. I came here because I wanted to be great, and I'd finally realized that the Menethil name didn't necessarily make me so. I was spoiled, pampered, and surrounded by what was truly great, the Knights of the Hand. I want to be a King worthy of protecting Lordaeron, after what happened… You were very young, but you told Uther even you remembered. You were just a little girl, but you will never forget. And you're one of the lucky ones…you lived to remember."

The chill in the room deepened, and I clutched my mug between cold fingers. _"Up!" My father, normally languid and controlled, desperately focusing beyond panic. He had snatched me from my bed, wrapping me in my blanket and throwing me to his shoulder. He was wearing armor, and I had blearily looked over his shoulder into the intent eyes of his Guardsmen. "Aaron! Aaron! What is it?" My mother, more annoyed than panicked then. "Put the child down. You'll frighten her." _

_ "There're horses in the yard. Go there now." _

_ "But…Aaron. 'Tis the mid of the night…" Some of the situation had finally begun to sink in, her words had been wary. "Nothing is packed, and where do we go?" _

_ "We pack nothing. And we ride straight for the Capital." _

_ "Aaron, we cannot show up there like this…it's…unseemly." _

_ "Stormwind has fallen. It has been razed. The Abbey as well. The Crown's orders are for every battle ready man to come to Lordaeron's defense, and to bring his family to find shelter within the walls. We show up there like everyone else does, Moira. With the clothes on our back." _

"I remember." It had been a long hard ride, in deep silence. Lordaeron had been chaos, bitter, seething turmoil. I had been locked into a tiny, dark room, too shocked to even cry, and there I had stayed, for an eternity.

"So do I. That birthed the Hand, Clarimonde."

I knew that, of course. The Fall of Northshire Abbey, just outside of the gates of Stormwind had been the catalyst. Her priests had put up a valiant fight, overwhelmed by the Horde…if they'd had some martial training, it could have helped. And at the battle before Lordaeron's gates, the newborn Order, led by Uther, had made its first stand… And the tide had been turned. I had survived.

"Never again." Arthas breathed. "I don't want to be the protected; I want to be the protector. No more hiding in a little room, knowing people are dying forme. I hated that the men who did that for me bowed and called _me _Your Highness, as if I was actually better than they were. I cannot be, the most I can hope for is to be an equal, and that I find here. But at least I have always been valued. You, I am not so certain."

"My father wanted a boy." That was putting it mildly, and his expression reflected that. "An heir to be proud of, like you are. Instead, he got me. And Uther does not understand that." But Arthas did, I could feel it.

"True. Uther is childless. He has no family ties; we are the closest he has. To him, we are equally precious, and he does not comprehend how a father does not see it. You are lovely, if he can see it, then obviously the man who sired you must as well. Now, he knows your father is wrong, that he is the type who abuses authority, but he cannot apply that to you. Your father will steal coin, which is foul but comprehensible. But to not love his own blood, Uther cannot, will not, grasp that. And we should love him for it. And Uther will love you, Clarimonde, if you give him the chance…" He stared at his plate. "Now. Clarimonde, while undoubtedly a lovely name, is a bit of mouthful, especially in a pinch, and there are a lot of those around here. If you don't mind, I'll just call you Clair."

"Clair is fine."

"The Order will make you strong, Clair. And we need to be strong."

I shrugged, uncertain as to that. All I wanted was for the pain to stop, but I knew that wasn't going to happen that day. Or the next.

I spent that winter in the haven of the Order, safe and secure, untouchable as Uther's ward. My father was arrested, and jailed, my mother sent to Lordaeron, and my lands put in trust to the Order. I grew stronger, more capable, and the pain vanished. I was where I belonged, with a father figure who cared, and a quasi brother who did as well. I no longer saw a joke in this, this was where I belonged… but things never stay calm. I've learned that well…


	4. Chapter 4

I spent that winter in the haven of the Order, safe and secure, untouchable as Uther's ward. My father was arrested, and jailed, my mother sent to Lordaeron, and my lands put in trust to the Order. I grew stronger, more capable, and the pain vanished. I was where I belonged, with a father figure who cared, and a quasi brother who did as well. I no longer saw a joke in this, this was where I belonged… but things never stay calm. I've learned that well…

It was spring, but it had been a sharp, wet one, little comfort from the earlier winter. I had laid on muscle, coltishly lanky instead of pale and thin. I drilled with Arthas in the morning, but had graduated to drilling with Uther in the afternoon. It was morning; a cold haze slimed the grass and turned the mud to hard butter. Arthas and I were sparring, merely playing, the marshals still watching. None of them called it; it was nothing I did wrong. It was nothing Arthas did wrong. It wasn't the horse, his or mine. It was simply wretched luck. They say these things are slowed forever in your mind…it wasn't. One minute I was setting my horse to turn over his haunches and meet Arthas's attack, the next moment I was on the ground, the horse on top of me, screaming.

_"HOLD!" _The marshals, Arthas's own deep voice in theirs, calling a halt to all sparring.

There was pain. So much of it. I'd never, ever even conceived of this kind of agony. It was stunning, silencing…too much to even consider breathing, much less crying or screaming.

"Clair!" He was beside me, either time was flowing very oddly, or he had thrown himself from his horse to make it me.

My horse was churning, convulsing, and the slightest move it made amplified the agony. "Arthas." I managed, and he stared at me. "Make it stop moving. Please, just…"

He nodded sharply, rose to his feet, and brought his warhammer down between its eyes, one massive blow. It didn't completely stop moving, but it fell to twitching. _"Uther!" _He bellowed, his voice ragged and much deeper than I was accustomed to. "_Damnit, Uther! To me, now!" _It was the call of a Menethil, a ruler, at odds with his normal behavior towards Uther. "Clair. Uther is coming. It's going to be fine."

"What the hell happened, boy?" Uther's voice, sharp, breathless. He'd been running…

"Her horse fell on her. I think…it's bad."

"Aye. Clair, lass… we're going to move the horse now. These things happen all the time, you know that."

Yes, I knew that. We'd had one just last week, but then, they had both, horse and rider, bounced up like little balls… basically none the worse for wear. Had everything been like then, the horse would have been up before Arthas had made it back to me. He hadn't been getting up, he had been thrashing… Arthas hadn't blinked once before killing him.

I passed out when they moved the horse, for the Light does bless us. I woke up to dim light and muted sounds, all hazed and unfocused, like a disjointed dream that didn't want to flow together right. My left hand was freezing, my right one warm and clasped in another's grasp. I opened my eyes, into Arthas's gaze. His expression brightened immediately. "Clarimonde." He breathed. "You're awake, finally."

"I…" Couldn't speak. My lips were cracked, my tongue swollen, and nothing worked correctly.

"Shhhh. Don't try." He smoothed the air back from my forehead and pressed his lips there. He felt very warm, very alive, while I felt stunned, lost, cold….dead. "It's wonderful that you're awake… Uther…."

"Wha', boy?" Uther muttered sleepily, very close by.

"She's awake."

Uther picked up my cold hand, he was obviously on the other side of my bed, and held it. "Morning, Lass." He whispered gruffly. "Gave us all a scare, you did."

"What…happened?" I forced the words. The most concrete memory I had was of Arthas's words… _"Her horse fell on her." _That had to have been it. The footing was bad… When the shift over had happened, he must have slipped.

"Your horse slipped in the mud." Arthas sighed, as the one to have actually witnessed it. "His hindquarters went out from underneath him, and he broke a leg in the fall. He landed on top of you…"

"How bad is it?" It was, I knew it. I'd seen how the Order handled small injuries, and this was not it. Arthas had broken a wrist in drill, and was back on the line in less than an hour.

"You kept trying to die on us." Arthas's voice was light, but when I focused on his face, his eyes were anything but. "Took everything we had to get you in the building alive enough for the priests to take over."

"You've broken your back, Lass. But the priests believe they've pulled you through. You had the common good sense to do that here, not elsewhere." Stratholme, the home of the Order, had more than its fair share of the best healers in the land.

"Will I walk again?"

Arthas glanced away from me, his eyes meeting Uther's, and I knew. They didn't know. They hoped, they prayed, but they didn't _know_. "We don't know, Clair." Arthas finally admitted. "We really don't know." He rested his hand on my forehead. "All we can do is pray. And we are."

"I know."

"Is there anyone you want here?" Arthas asked, an edge to his voice. "Your mother? I can have her brought from Lordaeron. Your father? I can have him paroled, long enough for him to come. Name it, Clair. And it will be done."

"All I want is you and Uther." I said, and it was the truth. "My father can stay where his foolishness put him…and my mother, no." I was too sick to handle that. This was all the family I needed, right here.

"As you wish, Lass." Uther murmured, tucking the blankets around me. "We'll be here when you wake again. Sleep it off, and we'll see where we go later."

"Uther…what happens if I don't…?" I couldn't make the question come. What happened if even the Lightbringer's prayers weren't enough, and I never walked again? Arthas hissed, but the question was not sent to him, and he was respectful enough to remain silent.

"Walk again?" The question was blunt, but delivered gently.

"Yes."

"You are still my ward. You have done nothing to bring dishonor to any of us. Obviously paladin, no, but you have a fine mind Clarimonde. If you choose to remain with us, you would make a fine cleric, an archivist, something. But we pray for now."

I woke again, an indeterminable time later. Arthas was gone, but Uther was not, watching the world move beyond the infirmary's windows. He looked older, haggard, tired. "I'm sorry." I stated, and he spun.

"Sorry, Lass? 'Twas an accident. They happen." He said, sitting in the chair beside me.

"No, for all of this. You didn't ask for…" What, me? Uther was an honest man, charged with raising young who weren't even his. At least Arthas had come to him honestly; I had been foisted on him by grace of an importune comment.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "I didn't ask for you, you mean? Clarimonde, you do not _ask _for half the blessings the Light decides to bestow upon you. And they are so much sweeter for the fact that you don't see them coming. Had I known, then certainly I would have asked for you."

"You look like hell."

"So do you." He sniped back quickly, but his eyes belied the retort. "But there is good news."

"Hmmm?"

"The priests are now fairly certain you will walk again. The more optimistic of them say your training can continue after you are given enough time to recover…_if _you choose to."

"If?" It looked to be a beautiful day through the window he watched. And here I was, flat on my back like a squashed bug…

"The accident was as bad as any we've ever had, Clair." He pondered the floor. "It would be no slight to you if you decided that was quite enough of this paladin idea. You've already made it so much farther than most. As has been noted before, your value to the Order falls beyond an ability to ride and fight. I would not want to see you leave us… Arthas was…" his brows bristled. I did not push, he would find his own words soon enough. "Arthas is quite fond of you. To have you so close to death has… taken the shine from him. He has had few friends, and none of them are here, until you arrived. Like it or not, complain as I might, Arthas is still the prince. Everyone here understands that. They cannot treat him as otherwise, and now I see he needs a peer… someone raised as he was, who understands. You are that companion."

I frowned, staring at the vaulted ceiling above me. Every choice I was asked to make pulled me further and further away from what I understood what I was here for. But the rules kept changing… My father was no longer that. He had bowed out of that, left that to Uther. I had made a statement in the darkness of pain and drugged sensibility that I needed to come to grips with. Uther and Arthas were my family now. It had seemed so clear in that moment when nothing else made sense. "I would never leave you. Never leave Arthas."

I know now that some promises should never be made. That…was one of them. Of course, I couldn't know that then. And the words settled Uther, rested his worries…if only for awhile. "Good, Lass." He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Festival is next week."

I knew that… although the weather was not cooperating, the Spring Festival was just around the corner. "Wondrous." I growled. Although I was recovering quickly, I had no doubts I would still be flat on my back, here, then.

"Jaina will be here for it."

And just _where _was he going with this? "Arthas will be pleased." It was the safest response I could come up with to answer him with.

"The boy blames himself for the accident."

"It was no fault of his." That, I was certain of. I had made the movement because Arthas had been too far away; therefore, he had not bumped or hindered my mount in any way.

Uther's eyes met mine, dark and solemn. "I've not talked to you about until I felt you were well enough to. Arthas is uncertain just what happened, and the marshals saw nothing until you fell. What did happen?"

"Arthas was out of reach. I asked the horse for a turn on his haunches to bring him over…" I closed my eyes… I had gathered him into the bit and shifted my weight. "I cued, and he…" had pulled up, exactly as he should have, crossing his front end over. "Lost his hind end. It slipped right out from beneath him." I remembered the fluidity; the horse had both front hooves in the air at that second. "He'd already started to come over, his hind legs were the only ones down. When he slipped on them…" There had been nothing to catch him. "That was it. Arthas was nowhere near me, Uther. He did nothing. There was nothing for the marshals to call, because we'd done nothing wrong. It was just dumb, stupid luck. What does this have to do with Jaina, anyway?"

"Arthas is blaming himself for it. He has made words to me that he would prefer if Jaina not come. That he means to stay with you for Festival, keep you company."

"Bah." I grumbled. "Sheer foolishness. He sees me every day… and sees her rarely."

"Truly."

"The last thing I need right now is a hang dog prince keeping me company because he feels blame for something he didn't do. That would…hurt." And it would, too. I didn't want Arthas here because he felt beholden to.

"Aye, lass. We'll do our best to at least have you sitting up by then. If you are, I'll carry you myself and settle you somewhere."

I eyed him narrowly. "Don't need a hang dog paladin keeping me company because he feels blame for something he didn't do." I stated, and Uther chuckled, obviously unfazed by the comment.

"World of difference between Arthas and me, lass." He breathed, smoothing my coverlet. "Arthas is the age where these are the wondrous memories to keep him going when the days are dark, and I would not take them from him. And for me, these are the days where I find nothing more appealing than to spend a day on the sidelines with my lovely young ward for company. I've been young, Clair. But I am that no longer."

"You're not old." He wasn't…physically. He wasn't really that much older than my father… They might even be about the same age. It was difficult to tell, my father had led a gentle life, and Uther had not.

"Old enough to appreciate a calm day, lass. And old enough to realize how close we came to losing you."

"Hmmph." I felt old and peevish, and unwilling to hear him muse on my very close call. "Tell me of Jaina. I imagine she's pretty."

"She is, aye." He looked at me oddly for a long moment. "Bit scattered for me, but pretty enough. Girl is always late."

"Blonde, I hear."

"Aye. She is. Fair and blonde. Tall, for a woman."

I only nodded. Of course she was. And I had few doubts she and Arthas made a wonderful couple. The half year I'd spent here had driven a couple of points home that did not fit with my father's view of life. He'd dismissed Jaina as an admiral's daughter, beneath me. I understood now that the royalty of Kul'Tiras merely decided to call themselves admirals and captains instead of kings and princes. Jaina's father was a king in all but name, which made her a princess, in all but name…

"Lass." Uther breathed. "There are plenty of other young men in the world. Better than…Arthas."

"Eh?" _That _was a new one. If it came from anywhere but Uther's lips, I'd call it manipulation. Politically, Jaina was the better choice for Arthas.

"I'd not want you involved in that, lass. Royalty tends to come to a bad end. You're mine, and better than that. I'd see you happy, with a fine strong man well before that. Arthas has no choice, he is the heir. Always has been. Always will be. Be his companion, his friend, even his advisor, for you have a level head… but not that." He frowned pensively. "Your father would have pushed you for marriage."

"Yes." I was tired of the games. "To Arthas."

"And what I am to you, now?" He stood, moved to the fireplace and stirred the coals, his forehead resting on his forearm.

"You are… my father now."

"Then my views should hold as much weight as his did?"

Put that way… "Yes."

He grunted assent. "Then… I tell you not to worry about marriage. You are nobility in your own rights, with lands and title. Be what you are meant to be, lass, whatever that is. But don't chase Arthas because it's what your father wanted. He's gone well away. You have great wisdom for one your age, _use _it. Aye, you could probably put up a fight for Arthas, but is that truly what you _want_?"

"I…don't know."

"Plainly said. Until you do, don't meddle."

"You make these things too simple, Uther." I sighed, and he tilted his head to regard me.

"_I _don't have to make things harder than they are, lass. Life is hard enough as it is without chasing after trouble. _You _have to make your life as simple as it can be, because everything else will conspire to make it otherwise."

"Uther?" I was feeling sleepy, awake for too long. That animal part of me was rising again, and I was slipping away with the suddenness that had come on the heels of the accident. He undoubtedly heard it, crossing back to the chair and sitting beside me. He took my hand, squeezing it.

"Aye, lass?"

"Why did you never marry? Why…" Had this man never had little ones of his own? He'd been a priest before the Hand's inception, but had come out of the Abbey to serve as a paladin. And the Order was not held from marriage, family… Not that he was too old, but he felt distant from the idea.

"The Order is all the family I need, Clair. It gives me a home. Companionship. And young ones to raise." He patted my hand. "And this young one needs her sleep."


	5. Chapter 5

By the Festival, I was doing better than just sitting… I could walk. Not gracefully, or quickly, but I could manage to get from place to place, as long as the way was flat and the distance was short. I tired quickly, but the efforts were worth the lessening of the lines between Uther's brows and the lightening of Arthas's eyes. I studied myself in the small mirror in my cell. I still looked awful, my eyes the color of bruised violets, my skin much paler than it had been since coming to the Order. I chose one of the gowns that Uther had deemed good enough for festivals, a dark wine wool heavily embroidered around the cuff and hem. It fit badly, I had lost too much weight… but it was lovely. Uther waited without, and it was again odd to see him out of armor. He offered his elbow, and I took it, moving slowly. If my lack of speed bothered Uther, he did not show it. He was a big man, and normally had a big man's stride, but he kept patiently to the pace I set. "You recover well." He stated, and I glanced at him.

"Yes."

"Have you made a decision yet?"

I sighed, looking out over the festival field. So many choices…and so many of them contradictory. Uther would love to see me commit to the Order, fully, take the Oath and go from there. To forget the idea of _marrying _Arthas, and become his helpmeet, his companion at arms. To let my birthright be enough for me, and rise where I would. "I don't know if I have what it takes to be a paladin." I murmured, and Uther narrowed his eyes.

"And what does it take to be a paladin?" He asked, and I blinked. Why, paladins were just that…paladins. The men who had stood before Lordaeron when the Horde came. Shining examples of the Light and all that my people could aspire to be….

"Uther. I am…too small for that." I knew better than to claim my gender, although the first of the Hand were male, almost half of the current initiates were female. We had stared oblivion in the face before, and Uther did not hold with the idea of not arming and training any who could and would fight for Lordaeron. _"Women die like men do, lass. The Horde set no difference between them when they came. Neither should we anymore." _He had said it, and it was the truth. The Horde had killed all, men, women, children…animals… in their path, and then burned what remained. Only strength and righteousness had turned them.

"Small." As if to prove my point, he looked down at me. "The Light and strength of a heart overcomes that, Clair. If the gifts of a paladin come to you, then your outward size means little. You believe that size, and doubt, stands in the way. One of our greatest had much doubt in the beginning, but it did not prevent him from shining. It is time, Clarimonde. Make your decisions. If you are well, continue your training. And to continue your training means it is time to commit. Arthas will swear to the Order next month… I would like you to stand beside him then, witness his…and have him witness yours. I would see my wards swornbound, if possible. Let him pursue Jaina, let him court her, even marry her and make her his queen. You… no. Men marry women they do not respect all of the time, but they do not fight beside them."

"I will… pray upon this, Uther." Not even Uther the Lightbringer would be able to rush me into this decision.

"It is not a decision to make lightly." He agreed, and I knew that was the last I'd hear of it that day. He settled me in a bright, sheltered spot with a good view, contentiously seating me and making certain I was warm enough. He sat on the ground beside me, well at ease, willing to let people come find him.

"Uther. I cannot find Clair." Arthas's voice from behind startled me out of an almost doze. "She is not in her room or the infirmary…"

Uther was leaning against the chair I rested in, and he chuckled. "The lass is right beside me, boy. Too fine a day to make her stay in."

"Oh. I brought Jaina to meet her…"

Uther met my eyes then shrugged, hopping easily to his feet and bowing. "Lady Jaina, lass." He greeted, and I fought the grin. Apparently every young woman between the ages of two and twenty was labeled 'lass' to Uther, not just me. "Wondrously fine day you've chosen to join us on."

"It is, yes, Lord Uther." A female voice, pleasant, but not a singer's tone. "You have a new ward?"

"Aye. Lady Jaina, Lady Clarimonde de Nemesio. Clair, Lady Jaina Proudmoore." He moved so that she could come around before the chair, and she did. He was correct; she was tall for a woman, with bright blonde hair several shades lighter than Arthas's, and turquoise eyes. She wore the violet robes of a younger mage of Dalaran, and a wide smile. Unfortunately, I did not hate her on sight… If I did, then my decisions would be so much easier to make. "Forgive me if I do not stand." I said, and the smile widened.

"Oh, no…don't." She laughed. "De Nemesio. That is a Lordaeron family, correct?"

The Hand took all, not only those from our kingdom. Jaina herself did not hail from Lordaeron, but from the island nation of Kul'Tiras, so the question was a valid one. I could come from any of the kingdoms in the Alliance of Lordaeron. "Yes. The estates are close to Brill." I answered.

"Ah." She took the patch of grass opposite Uther, on my other side. "It's good to see you looking so well, to lose a candidate for the Hand would have been a crime. Arthas wrote of how well you were doing, then…" She looked up, beyond me, and I knew she looked at Arthas, silent behind me. "I got the letter afterwards."

"We are blessed." Arthas stated, and Uther nodded.

"Yes." She agreed and there was no shadow under her words. She meant it. "Arthas has been worrying. I hope that now he'll calm down."

"I am fine. I walked here on my own two feet." The fact that I'd done it painfully slowly, supported by Uther every step of the way did not fit with my bravado, and I did not add it.

"Good." She said, truthfully. "Arthas tells me you've a lovely voice and play well. I'd love to hear some of it before I have to go again…?"

"I'd be honored, Lady Proudmoore. So you'll be leaving us before Arthas swears to the Order?"

Her face fell slightly, and she shrugged. "I cannot stay from my studies that long. He tells me he hopes you will be there in my stead… you are lucky to live in Stratholme."

"I hear the Violet Citadel is quite grand…" That was truthful, but Uther didn't bother to rein in a snort at my words. Jaina laughed, obviously at his response, and not my words.

"Grand, yes." She agreed. "Uther hates it. He prefers a place which makes sense. Get too many mages living in the same place, and strange things are bound to happen… All the time."

Uther smiled, but the smile did not make its way to his eyes. He saw the value of mages, but too much of what they learned could be twisted. So much power, so few restrictions… his words on them were plain. The control and discipline he so prized was not equally prized in the Citadel.

"I love Stratholme." I replied diplomatically, and she smiled, her eyes dancing. "And I am lucky to live here."

"Spoken like a true paladin." She chuckled. "You'll go far. Very far."

A cloud moved over the sun, casting chill in its wake, and I shaded my eyes with my forearm as I eyed it. Just one… the day would remain fair throughout, but that knowledge did not banish the chill of its passing. "Clair, lass?" Uther asked, and I pulled my eyes from it.

"…Nothing." I murmured. Jaina's eyes narrowed and she glanced between me and the errant cloud several times.

"Was it something I said?" She asked, while Uther watched me silently.

"Yes, no." I shrugged. "It happens. And it will go away." It always had before, leaving me none the worse.

"What will go away, Clair?" Uther asked me, but his gaze fell across my lap, to meet Jaina's eyes. I shrugged at the question, I could not answer that, it would mean finding words for something that had none. However, Uther was not inclined to let it go as easily as those before him; I could feel him pushing even though he remained silent. Jaina listened as intently, her eyes inclined to nothing beside me.

"Certain…phrases people say stand out. Certain…thoughts I have mean more than they should, or feel like they should. Certain…nothings….bother me."

Jaina nodded sharply. "With your permission, and Lord Uther's, I would like to try something…"

I'd prefer not, but Uther nodded immediate agreement, and Arthas's hands fell on my shoulders. "Fine." I murmured warily.

"Close your eyes. Drift. You're unwell, it should come fairly easily." She moved to kneel before me, and her hands were very warm when she folded mine in hers. She murmured syllables, soothing, quiet… and my world fell out from underneath me. I felt both terribly sleepy and completely alert. "Clarimonde. You will go far." She stated, and I recoiled from her.

"_No." _I hissed. "_No. I don't want to go there." _Where those words came from, I had no idea.

"Hhhhmmm." She sighed thoughtfully. "And is there any way you can avoid going there?"

_"Things go as they will. Avoid one, run headlong into another." _ What? What the hell was I spouting? Rampant insanity. _"It is in play." _

She released my hands, quickly. "Wake up, Clarimonde." Her voice was sharp with command, and my eyes flew open. "I dare go no further with that, Uther." She stated, all the honey and flowers out of her voice. "It is not wise to prod that depth of prophecy in such an…uncontrolled…environment. Even if it was, I am not strong enough to keep her safe during it."

"I will not send her to the Citadel." Uther snapped, and Jaina raised a brow at him.

"Did I suggest such a thing?" She demanded, and he did not answer. "No. I was merely going to say she needs some sort of training. You have clerics here more than capable of teaching her to focus through it. She is correct; those who would try and use prophecy usually just make things worse…. Avoid one, run headlong into the next, worse. If I keep prodding her, she may drop into a fugue…she's compromised physically and untrained mentally, but she is prophetic, yes. Know that she is, train her, and keep her safe. She will be a fine paladin."

_"One of these days, I will walk from the Darkness back to the Light." _ I spoke it aloud, and she tilted her head.

"Wake up." She hissed, waving at a passing servant. "Bring food. Hearty food, nothing light." He returned quickly with just as she'd asked, beef pasties in a thick crust, filled with boiled oats, carrots and herbs. "Eat." She ordered, and glared at me until I complied. The heaviness of it filled the empty giddy void that brought this confusion, and she nodded. "Better?"

"Much." I responded in my own voice, and she nodded agreeably.

"She means to go into the Order?" She asked Uther as if I was not even there, and I glared at her.

"Perhaps." He stated noncommittally, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Perhaps?" She repeated. "Perhaps."

"She was very badly injured, lass. We are finally reaching the point where we feel she may be able to return to her training, _if _she wants to. The Order does not force itself on any…"

"Uther. You do _not _understand." She breathed, and his face settled into obstinacy, which she ignored admirably. "Arthas tells me she nearly died…"

His brows bristled and he glowered. "No nearly. She did, in the lad's lap." He finally admitted, and she closed her eyes, her hand on mine again.

"And she was revived. Damnit, Uther, you know…."

"Aye, I know." He muttered. "And I'll see her trained, which is what you're getting to, even if she does not go to the Order. She is mine, and I will not see her face this without the tools to handle it. I have…resources."

"Of course you do." Jaina replied, her eyes back on Arthas. "Was a pleasure to meet you, Clarimonde." She rose to her feet, beckoning to Arthas. "I am certain we will meet again."

So was I.


	6. Chapter 6

I sat the horse uncomfortably, not because I hurt, but because I feared, and he felt it, moving in shuffling little strides, his ears in a constant waver. He chewed nervously on his bit, even though I let him have his head. I had come early to the field, well before Uther normally came to drill, but I was not surprised to see him appear. A little surprising was that he led an ordinary horse fully tacked behind him, and not his bound charger. He mounted it, and rode to intercept me, falling in step beside me. "Fine day for a ride." He noted, and I managed a weak smile.

"You're out early." I said when he did not carry on the conversation without me.

"Heard you were out here." He answered, unsubtle as always. "Clair. Let's just ride… out on the road to Hearthglen, not on the list field."

"That would be good." I agreed, heading out with him. I didn't truly pay that much attention to us, didn't quite realize that neither one of us was mounted on a war steed. I was unarmed and unarmored, intending on only riding monotonous circles around the list field. Uther had eschewed his charger, and the heavy majority of his armor. After all, this was Stratholme, jewel of northern Lordaeron, home of the great Order of the Silver Hand…

We had ridden for quite a way, far enough for me to relax and sway with my mount like a real rider again, confident enough to take a hand from his reins to wave with a point. Uther's face had been watchful early, but he'd relaxed as well, nodding along with my words, when it went back to watchful instantly. Then I heard cries, barely audible under the birds and whispering of the trees, that of a small child… Uther galvanized into motion, stepping his horse into a canter straight from the walk. I almost yelled his name, but that voice that kept me safe when nothing else did silenced me. No. I would not give him away, neither his presence, nor his identity.

My horse danced beneath me, the sudden speed of its companion an invitation to run as well, and I clenched my hands on its reins. Uther had ridden straight down the road, but there was a deer path visible through the thick trees just budding with spring leaves… close to parallel to the road. I softened my hands on the reins, sitting deeper in the saddle, and my horse hopped into a short strided canter. Last season's fallen leaves mulching the way muffled his passage, and I arrived on Uther's flank with much less noise than he passed with.

"Put the boy down." He growled, still an impressive noise without the finery of a paladin's armor and mount, while I surveyed the situation from the higher ground I occupied. Bandits…here? Surely not. But that was a cart, overturned, at least one body… Five men… armed, one holding a small child suspended by its forearm from the side of his dark bay horse. That was like flapping a bright banner before a bull, and Uther's set expression proved that he was indeed that bull.

I frowned, we were less than eight miles from Stratholme… this was too… wrong. Three of the men carried chains, not precisely a weapon of choice against raiding targets…. Chains were good against swords, such as the one hanging at Uther's side, a weapon of little honor but great expediency.

"What have we here?" The man on the bay asked, but he declined to drop the child, instead bringing it closer to the horse, and I saw Uther through his eyes. Without his marks of station, Uther was a large man, plainly dressed, on a serviceable horse. He lacked the precise words of a man raised to nobility, while he did not use a commoner's dialect, his words did not bring to mind a gracious upbringing.

"I said…put the boy down…_gently_." Uther stated again, and I cast around for a weapon… any weapon. Unfortunately, when I apparently needed it the most, mine was resting in its stand on my chest. I slithered from my saddle, dropping my reins to the ground, and prayed. All of the Order's war mounts were trained to ground tie, but this was just a riding animal pulled at random from the stables. He had trustworthy eyes, and that had been enough this morning… I should have taken Arthas's big gray instead.

While I wasn't sure if this one was trained to do so, he seemed happy enough to stay, and I dropped behind a ridge of rocks, closing in on the farthest of the men from Uther. I wasn't completely unarmed, I carried a belt knife…it would have to be enough. The air was slowing with the inevitable conflict, and I closed my mind to it. All that mattered was that man, and that horse… thankfully the horse was more intent on watching Uther and Uther's strange horse than to notice my progress towards it.

"You're awfully close to Stratholme to be doing this." Uther noted coldly, and the man holding the boy chuckled.

"Of course. Where else do you hunt paladins at, but the woods of Stratholme? And you…are you a paladin?"

I knew Uther's answer to that, and I knew better than to let him get the answer off. I punched the dagger deep into the horse's side, behind where its ribcage would end. The animal screamed, the same high pitched shriek my war steed had before Arthas had ended the animal's pain. Unfortunately, there would be no end to this one's agony any time I could see. It bolted forward, deep into the cluster that faced down Uther, mad with pain.

Uther reacted in a split moment, using the distraction to draw his sword and charge the man on the bay. It would have been more impressive a display had he had the mount to charge correctly, but he got there while I was left again contemplating my options. I needed a weapon, preferably a bow, and quickly, before they came looking for me. I could see the open side of the cart, and it gave me little hope. The family was dead, and the most interesting weapon they had traveled with was a shovel. Damnable luck…it would just have to do…

I grabbed the shovel, and spun. My progress had attracted the attention of two of the men, both riding towards me. Uther had closed with his target, and I frowned… he was beginning to glow… an effect described to me many times, but easily figured as an exaggeration until I saw it. Any chance of denying what he was had vanished with that display… He was, after all, Uther the Lightbringer…

"It's a paladin!" The ringleader yelled the obvious, and I fought back my response. They were out here, this far from Stratholme, trawling for young ones on patrol. What they had managed to dredge up was not _a_ paladin, but _the _paladin… Uther, Grand Master of the Order. Fools… without the sense a newborn calf had. I ducked around the first horse after me. If it was a charger, it would have been barded, but it was not, and I brought the edge of the shovel down along its knee. It screamed, adding its voice to the sudden cacophony of conflict. I tracked Uther out of the corner of my eye; this was going to get very bad, very quickly if something didn't give soon. The more horses I took out, the worse it would get for me…

I heard the drum roll of hooves on the road, a large animal, moving with the consistent speed of a well trained and ridden mount, and a charger burst into the clearing. Its rider, a man in the Order's tabard over his armor, pulled it up to study the tableau before him…

"To her side!" Uther bellowed, pointing unerringly at me with his off hand, although his full attention was on his target. The man touched heels to the horse's barrel, closing with me, his path intercepting the second oncoming horse before it reached me. There was a mind numbing crash as the seventeen hand, hundred and fifty stone charger collided with the fourteen hand, eighty stone light riding animal. The charger added insult to injury by savaging the much smaller horse with its teeth, and the smaller one buckled beneath the assault and collapsed, wailing.

I was scooped up from my perch on the wagon, planted behind the rider. "I've got you." He stated, spinning the charger to attack the broken horse's dismounted rider. I merely closed my eyes and gripped on to the young paladin, every ounce of my will set to staying mounted and avoiding getting in his way. It was too soon after the accident for this…I wanted off the horse, but it was the safest place, in spite of the jerking. My back howled in protest, and I stifled a cry during a particularly fast change of direction. What was, couldn't be helped…

"All right, lass." Uther's voice, very close, and I opened my screwed up eyes and looked down at him. "Let go. I've got you. How bad is it?"

"It hurts." I whined, and he sighed.

"Aye. Figured as much. Come to me." I put my hands on his shoulders and let him lift me from the horse's back. He carried me like a child, my chin on his shoulder, his hands under my rump, away from the charger. I was settled in a nest of almost dry leaves caught on a fallen log, and he covered me with his cloak. The pain faded when he murmured a prayer over me, but I was left sleepy and dreamy, wrapped in a cloak that smelled of him, safe, next to the child rescued earlier.

"She was injured before I arrived?" The new paladin demanded, and I opened kitten eyes to study him. He'd removed his helm and coif, a rooster tail of coal black fell over a broad forehead. He had warm hazel eyes, a wide jaw…not as finely made as Arthas, but pleasing enough to look upon.

"Aye." Uther growled, "We were riding to get her reacquainted with a horse. She had a fall during training, mount landed on her. I meant this to be a nice, pleasant ride, not to have her bashing horses with shovels. What news, Baudoin?"

"I've been looking for these." He spat in the general direction of the scattered bodies. "They've been looking for me. We keep missing each other, until now, sir. Other than that, I can't tell you why. What now?"

Uther sighed, glancing around. "I'll not leave the boy's family here for the animals to pick upon. My ward is unfit to ride until she rests, as is the boy. Go to Stratholme. Tell Arthas I need him here, with a full kit, and a burial detail. I will guard here until they arrive. Go with care, Baudoin."

"Aye, sir." The paladin touched heels to his charger and the animal leapt into a ground eating lope away.

"Not asleep yet, lass?" Uther mused, roving to gather deadfall for a fire, and clearing an area of rotting leaves to set it.

"No. Drifting more than sleeping." I sighed, and he chuckled. "When Arthas arrives, we'll get you settled down for the night better than that. Are you warm enough?"

"Yes." In spite of my words, my eyelids were growing heavy and my breathing was deepening. When he did not continue the conversation, I slipped farther, almost asleep…but quite alert. I heard the big gray's hoof beats well before Arthas arrived in the dim twilight.

"Uther… Baudoin said…" He was much louder than my surroundings had been and I twitched in response.

"Hush, boy." Uther chided softly. "The little one sleeps. Clair rests. And I am quite close enough to hear you. You brought the kit?"

"Yes. The detail is moving slower, they should be here in about an hour…"

"Then we get the tent up before it becomes dark." Uther moved towards the horse, past me. "It will get damp and chill very soon. There will be time to speak of this then, with the innocent and our injured settled."

I woke in the predawn light, my nose cold, the rest of me warm as could be. I was on my side, between two deeply sleeping mounds… the one in front of me had long, tangled dark gold hair and from what I could see of his jaw, a good growth of darker stubble… Arthas. I rolled cautiously over, to not disturb the covers, and identified Uther as the one who slept behind me. I could hear an encampment around me, horses shifting in the early morning fog, the voices of men… the watch. When I rolled again, stiff, but not pained, to look through the tent flap beyond my head, I saw the same paladin as the afternoon before watching the camp.

My fidgeting had attracted his attention, and he gave me a half smile when I peered from my cocoon. He mouthed 'good morning' at me, and I smiled back.

"Better this morning, lass?" Uther…who had shown no signs of wakefulness at all, but who sounded completely awake when he spoke.

"Yes. Stiff, but nothing hurts." Six months ago, I would have called this pain, but now I knew better. Nothing hurt with the deep, chewing pain I now knew was _pain _and not just mere discomfort. This was stiff, and it would work itself away.

"Good. Hate to think you've suffered a set back from this." He slid from his bedroll, completely dressed. "We'll have you back in Stratholme before noon rises… Arthas will take you."

"Certainly." Arthas agreed, not as wakeful as his mentor, but not nearly as asleep as I'd originally thought.

"And the little one?" I asked, sitting up. The morning was chill and damp…I was greeted by a gust of freezing air that made we want to dive right back in. I forced myself to not give into that indulgence, but I did wrap Uther's heavy cloak around me.

"Baudoin will carry him." Uther slipped through the tent flap before rising to his full height. "I will stay here, learn what I can. This…. Bothers me. But I'll see Clair returned to the Order, and the little one to the church before that."

"I'm on it." Arthas slithered from his roll, with the vigor of youth and health, heading for the picket line of horses before he had completely cleared the tent. Uther watched him, and then shrugged, his speed closer to mine as I cautiously stood. "Clair." He murmured, and I turned back. "Make sure the boy heads straight back to Stratholme, at a good pace, and that he stays there. And you stay there as well. 'Tis bad enough I have people out here hurting to lure us out… if something were to happen to _Arthas _out here…"

I did not need to hear more. Terenas was a good king, fair, wise, but he'd seen Lordaeron through a time that required steel and unflinching leadership. He was good, but he could be pushed far….too far.

"Then why did you call him here?" I asked, turning away from the camp so that my words stayed unheard.

"Boy clamors to be useful. Figured if he helped dig some graves in a spitting nasty rain, he'd realize what useful really is. Being a Hand of the Order is not all shining armor and flashy horses. It's wet. It's cold. It's dirty. It's doing without so that others are well. But this morning brings a feeling that I don't want him, and I certainly don't want _you, _out here."

I wrinkled my nose at him, and he rested a forearm across my shoulders. "None of that, lass." He breathed, smoothing my sleep rumpled hair. "Only a fool says they're well when they're not. You acquitted yourself well yesterday, time to pull back. There are others, trained and hale, to do this job. You are neither."

The fog parted to reveal Arthas, mounted on his gray, and Uther silenced. He helped lift me behind Arthas, and I wrapped my arms around Arthas's narrow waist, and Uther settled his cloak over me. It was warm, safe; I could hear the beat of his heart through his linen tunic… the gusts of his breathing. He rested his hand over mine, gathering the reins in the other. "Settled, Clair?"

"Yes."

He nodded, shifting his weight and the horse stepped into a canter. He was quiet for a very long time, and I was entirely too content reveling in my surroundings to carry on a conversation.

"Clair." He finally stated, his voice weirdly echoing through his chest, and I lifted my ear from his back.

"Eh?" I replied.

"Uther told me he'd asked you to consider becoming my swornbound."

I sat up completely, balancing by gripping the cantle of his saddle. "He did ask me that, yes." I confirmed.

"And were you considering it?" The gray had a big, rolling stride, effortless on the track to Stratholme, the budding trees zipping by. "If I chose to swear to the Order I would be honored to be your swornbound." I hedged, and he sighed.

"Clarimonde. You are born to be a paladin. Now, I see what Uther means when he says that the things obvious to others may be hidden to us."

"The Order is a great commitment." I stated. "There are things tied up in this that I can't just ignore." The same things he was merrily blundering through, for his commitments were so much greater than mine… "I am my father's heir." As was he.

"I know that." He replied blithely, and I understood why Uther wore a perplexed and annoyed expression so often.

"Going into the Order will destroy any chance of a political marriage. My oaths to the Order, to Lordaeron, and indeed, to you, if we were swornbound…would come first. Paladins make poor wives, Arthas." And possibly, poor kings, but I could not bring myself to say it.

"You're too good to be a broodmare." He grumbled. "And Jaina says you _must _be trained. She's fairly insistent on that…made me promise I'd see it happen. Clarimonde, stand beside me, be my swornbound."

The haze was deep in the hollow we loped through, and I felt a sudden chill. That was one of those promises which came with a great weight… "Very well, Arthas Menethil." I answered in a voice that wasn't truly my own. "I will be your swornbound." Again, a step further. And the game was still in play.

The day I swore to the Order as an initiate, and to Arthas as his swornbound companion, first among his siblings under arms, was a beautiful clear one. The Chapel was solemn, cut by blinding blades of sunlight through the gloom. I wore the tabard of the Order, as did Arthas, and he was wondrously fine in it. Uther stood in the shadows, and he wore the prideful stare of a father when my eyes sought his. "I am Arthas Menethil, and I pledge my life, my soul, to the Order of the Knights of the Silver Hand." Arthas's voice was steady; he was busily fulfilling a dream he'd had since childhood. _He _knew what he wanted, and I envied him for it. "I pledge to protect those who cannot protect themselves. To stand against darkness in all its guises. To be a beacon for those who need the Light to see. I swear to protect Lordaeron, and her allies." He continued, but my mind was flighty and refused to settle and listen. I was supposed to be here to witness Arthas's oath, and I could not focus on it.

He smiled at me, and that I could focus on. By accident, or more probably, design, the area we stood in was crowned by sunbeams, and he seemed almost inhumanly fair. "I am Clarimonde de Nemesio…" I began, under his intent gaze. He nodded sharply when it was complete, when I was sworn to the Order, an action I could not retract even if I cared to. He reached across the span between us, and I took his sword hand in my own, watching as the priest bound them with the same braids that held our swords safe in peace bonds.

"Clarimonde, my sister." He intoned solemnly. "I call you first among my equals, the first I will call for aid and succor. My household is yours. My blade is yours. My shoulder is yours to take your burdens when they become too much for you to bear alone. I stand at your back, and raise my voice in support of you when you should need it."

"Arthas…my brother." I began… and some things were just ordained to be. That, I fear, was one of them. In my mind, I gave up any thought that Arthas would be anything but just that, my swornbound companion. I was not immune to the subtleties, I was first among equals with the man who would be king of Lordaeron, but I would never be his queen. I would lie beside him in the field, in tents, but never lie beneath him… That's what I thought, but fate laughed at such thoughts, and wound the knots tighter.


	7. Chapter 7

That was when I began training in earnest, taught not only the minor arts of combat, but how to wield the Light as deftly as I wielded the multitude of weapons I was expected to be competent with. Uther was correct, what I lacked in stature, I made up for in sheer ability. Again, things came easily, like breathing. The only one who could challenge me was Arthas, my bright and shining brother, and that was exactly how it should have been. We were so busy pushing each other to farther heights that we failed to note the obvious. And Uther, there were some things he was just oblivious to… as much as he liked to hold us up to his height, we were fallible. We were human. We were young…

The harvest festival was in full swing, in a week of glorious weather. I was an adult, a paladin, swornbound to the Prince. I was also…more than a little inebriated. Hardly falling down drunk, that would be unseemly for Uther's ward, and a Knight of the Hand, but I was well in the giggly stage. I had started out the afternoon with Baudoin, who had done me the disservice of introducing me to his local cherry beer. He was correct, I liked it… a lot, and I didn't have much tolerance for it. His cheer had become wary, and he clung to me like a sheep tick, unwilling to let me out of his sight. Like his beer, I liked him a lot too. He wasn't Arthas, true enough, but he was a fine paladin, steadfast, patient, a good conversationalist when I had finally managed to draw him out of his shyness. I knew deep in my heart that this what Uther meant when he said a good strong man, and I was willing to try.

"Come on, Clarimonde." He chuckled. "Time to get you to a nice, quiet place so you can sleep this off, and no more beer for you." He took my arm and was leading me towards the barracks when we ran into Arthas coming out of them. Arthas was either just a touch more sober than I was, or better at hiding it…but Baudoin judged him quickly enough, and in his defense, tried to keep me going.

"Clair!" Arthas greeted, "No, wait…Baudoin, what…?"

"She's had a little too much beer, your highness." Baudoin stated, "My fault, yes. I was taking her in to sleep it off…"

Arthas stared at me for a long moment before grinning. "Oh, my. She is. I'll take it from here, Baudoin."

Baudoin paused, chewing on the words. Obviously he wanted to keep right on taking me inside, as planned, but not only was Arthas the prince, he was my swornbound. If anyone was supposed to be responsible for me, it would be him, or Uther. "Of course, your highness." He muttered, stepping backwards with one last cautious look at me. All I had to do was call him back…but I didn't. When he'd given me more than enough of a chance, he spun and left.

"You look like you're having too fine a time to be put to bed quite this early, Clair." Arthas chuckled, extending his elbow. "You've been spending a lot of time with him."

"I like him." I frowned, suddenly dizzy, and clutched at Arthas. "Perhaps he was right…it is rather noisy here, and I don't feel quite myself."

"We'll go somewhere quieter. You'll feel better with some food in you, but the day is still young." So we got a couple of horses and a knapsack dinner, and rode out and settled under a great tree which stood sentry over an open field. We spread a blanket and ate our fills, mine washed down with water, but Arthas was still drinking mead… I tasted it dry and sweet on his lips when he kissed me, and he was most certainly _not_ considering me his sister then.

"Arthas…" Some modicum of sanity spoke from me. I was not so drunk that this didn't make sense. "This is probably not such a good idea… Jaina?"

"You're very beautiful, Clair." He sighed, running his fingers down my jaw line.

"Jaina?" That sanity tried again…it was a good fighter, I'd have to give it that.

"I've not seen her in months. And before that, months again. I haven't asked her, and she hasn't asked me… Clair, I…" his eyes, normally bright and luminous were then shadowed and dark. "I can't wait like this. It's wrong to ask you, I know, but…" He left the sentence to hang, and asked me again with his lips. This time the sanity retreated to a dark corner and muttered complaints there, well away from me. And I let it happen. I could have told him no, perhaps I should have…but I didn't. And, of course, I paid for it, exactly as my mother warned me I would.

"You look like hell, lass." Uther noted, and I picked my eyes up from my breakfast. "Eat. 'Twill make you feel better."

I doubted that, if I was right. I had missed a cycle, and now…that food looked like the worst idea imaginable. "Uther." I stated warily, and he glanced at me. "I think I may have gone and done something stupid."

"Stupid…" He let the word hang. "Stupidity usually hurts someone along the way. So is it still stupid?"

"Yes."

He frowned at me. "So, lass. Out with it." He stated. "And we'll deal with it."

"I think… I might be with child." There. It was out, made solid. I'd said it, and I couldn't bring it back.

His brow arched, and he rubbed his chin in thought. "And who do you think that would hurt, lass? Baudoin may take some ribbing, but he'll be proud as can be. You've made a good choice with that one…"

"It's not Baudoin's." I almost wished it was. Uther was correct, he'd take some ribbing, but it would be short lived. He sighed, shaking his head.

"Arthas." He finally stated, his eyes darkening… beginning the glower I recognized from his dealing with my father, and several times beyond. It was Uther…angry.

"Yes."

He stood, watching me out of the corner of his eye as he moved to his door. As he had on the first night I'd known him, he leaned out and bellowed Arthas's name. It was common enough to cause no comment. He sat back down, stewing, letting the door hang open. I could hear Arthas well before he was visible, and he appeared in the doorway, obviously fresh from the drill field. "Sir?" He asked.

"Close the door and sit." Uther's voice was steel, and Arthas complied quickly. "I was just talking to Clarimonde. I think this is a discussion you should be involved with."

"Oh?" Arthas glanced between me and Uther, obviously at a loss. "What…is it, Clair?"

I looked at Uther, but he stared back silently, no help there. Obviously I'd gotten myself in this… "We…have a problem, Arthas." I managed, and he raised puzzled green eyes to me. "I…. think I might be… with child."

His face fell. Utterly, absolutely devastated, and stunned into silence. I was fairly certain he'd been with Jaina, but she was obviously wiser or luckier than I was. "I…" he said, shaking his head. "I am so sorry, Clarimonde. I am such a fool. I don't deserve… I don't…" He had gone desperately pale, "Clair… my sister…I…."

"Your sister." Uther ground out, the phrase condemnation enough, and Arthas flinched. "Where the hell were…" His eyes slipped to me… "_Both _of your heads?"

Arthas's jaw locked. "Uther. Leave her out of this. She shares no responsibility…"

"No responsibility. She has a mind, and supposedly the will to use it. She knows the word no…I've heard her use it on more than one occasion. Unless you're going to try to tell me you took her against her will?"

"No, but I took advantage of her. I knew she was drunk… Baudoin said as much, he was trying to take her back to the barracks. I should have let him…"

"Baudoin has three…four…five times as much sense in his one head than both of you have put together." Uther snapped. "Now what, children?"

"I will go to my father. Inform him. Tell Jaina…" Arthas sighed, "And marry Clair as soon as possible."

My heart plunged into my queasy stomach. What had started as the whole reason for me to be here was now such a wrong. I had managed it. Pulled it off. I carried Arthas's child, his first born. He'd said the words my father would kill to hear… Marry Clair.

"I will not permit it." Uther snarled, and Arthas blinked in obvious confusion.

"Sir?" He asked, and Uther spun on me.

"And you, lass? Your plans for this are….?"

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. It was too damned early for plans… I'd barely managed to get my mind around the idea. "Arthas." I stated, "Sometimes I wonder if you listen…"

"I listen! Clair, I understand this, I honestly do…" He cried, and Uther watched me through narrowing eyes. "What do you think I've missed…?" Arthas finally asked, planting an elbow on the table and leaning against it.

"Remember when you asked me to be your swornbound, on the road back to Stratholme?" He nodded slowly; too bright to not know where I was going with this now. "This is what I was afraid of. This is why I was so hesitant. I cannot marry you, exactly as I told you then. My oaths to the Order come first. My oaths to _you_, as your swornbound, come first. My oaths to Lordaeron and her allies come first."

"You carry my heir, the heir to Lordaeron…especially if it is male…"

_And it was. _I knew that beyond any reasoning. "It is." I murmured, and Uther's frown deepened. I was saying all the things he wanted me to, but they didn't ease this predicament. "Male. It is. _He _is."

"Then this is my heir." Arthas stated calmly, most of the panic fleeing from his expression. "Even if you do not marry me. Surely, Uther…you see that…"

"Tell me what you see, Clair." Uther asked, moving to take the seat across from me. "Because you have. You do."

I closed my eyes…most of the training I'd received so far was to control, deny, the visions…I'd gotten precious little to call them. The Order did not approve, too many things went astray when left to prophecy. "This is a boy. The heir of the Menethil family. Arthas and Jaina will produce no children, and I will give Arthas no more. He will never sire another. This is it, Uther."

He dropped his head, chin into his throat. He would have rather heard that Jaina would gift Arthas with many, a half dozen fine sons and a half dozen fair daughters, than hear that. "That settles it." Arthas stated coldly, echoes of his father in the words. And, indeed, it did. Uther served Lordaeron, and her needs came first.

"Aye, that settles it. Clair will go to Northshire." He said, running his fingers through his silvering hair. Arthas frowned, but he knew better to say more, that voice was Uther's unassailable, decisions already made, one. "They have need of an archivist and teacher, since she cannot be expected to patrol in this condition. It was the Abbey which taught me, it is fitting they get my ward…and the child born of my household to be born there."

"I will escort her there…" Arthas began, and Uther sent him a stonily disapproving look.

"No, lad. Baudoin will, since he's apparently the one with the sense around here. You will go to Darrowshire."

Baudoin rode beside me in silence, but his gaze was wary when it coasted across my face. "What?" I finally demanded when it had grown too long for my tastes. "Out with it."

"The Lord Uther spoke in confidence to me." He began slowly, and I cursed internally. Of course he had… "I feel…like I have wronged you. Uther would not hear of it, but his denials do not lessen it. I share fault in this…"

I felt as if I had been cleaved… the world spun around me, and only the very nature of my military saddle kept me up on the horse. "No. I must…. Have this child. There is no fault here. None to you. None to Arthas. None to me." _If this one is not born, and the one after… All was lost. _"My child will be a blessing, Baudoin. Please…"

His face startled, and he looked suddenly younger. He was roughly contemporary to Arthas, only a couple of years my elder, but he carried his face like Uther did. "Of course your child will be a blessing, Lady Clarimonde." He agreed. "All children are, and the child of two of the Order, doubly so. I am sorry to infer that it wouldn't be."

"Then there is no blame to bear in a blessing."

"Looked upon that way, then no, no blame." He nodded slowly. "And you are close to the prince. Sworn to him. You are correct, I am being foolish."

"So. We know why I am being sent to Northshire. Why are you?"

"Uther finds my education lacking. I am…to be one of your students. Yours and the abbot's." He rummaged in his pack, and came up with his letter of introduction…to me. "Rather odd that Uther would feel _you _need a letter to introduce me, but…" I assume he shrugged; it was difficult to tell under that much armor. I opened it and scanned Uther's tight handwriting. He pretty much had it right; Uther had found his education lacking for a young paladin on a fast track to leadership in the Hand. Baudoin was a farmer's son who wanted more. He was fast, smart, and coming to Northshire to have his rougher parts smoothed down. I was to instill in him all of those fineries that Uther found so onerous, because he was meant to deal with nobility.

"I understand." I was Uther's heir, in the truest sense of the word, heir to whatever lands and monies he possessed, but Baudoin was his choice to lead the Hand after him. And he would give Baudoin the same education he had benefited from, with the addition of my services. "Northshire taught Uther, before it was destroyed."

"Aye. This area was hard hit." The Horde had cut a swath of complete annihilation from Stormwind to Lordaeron City. Everything we passed through was rebuilt since.

There are times, as Uther said to me, that are our golden times. The times we look back on when the days grow dark and cold, that fortify our soul against despair. My stay at Northshire was just that. My mother had complained bitterly about her pregnancy, but she was either full of rage at my father, or less of a woman than I was. Or maybe the Light within me smoothed my way…I grew complacently fat, almost rebelliously healthy. The worries that I had conceived too close to the accident were for naught, the only concerns were that I was getting too fat to gracefully teach Baudoin the dances he needed to know. It was good to be away from Arthas, and even Uther.

"You carry well." Baudoin noted with a smile. "I worried you would not, with your size and Arthas is no small man. Many highbred young women are not…" he stumbled over the words, caught himself, and immediately turned red. That look meant he had almost said something that was acceptable on a farm, and nowhere else. I stared at him, resting the flat of my hand against my protruding belly.

"You may as well spit the rest of it out." I chuckled, leaning over his shoulder to view his writing.

"Good breeders." He finished, bashfully. He had lovely lashes, I realized, that close to him. And deep, brandy eyes… an ache grew within me, that normally only grew in those moments when Arthas was beautiful, in those moments I wanted to be touched.

He sensed the change, his expression stilling. There was no way he'd want me, six months heavy with another's child… He stood, carefully placing his pen down. "You are beautiful, Clarimonde." He said it thickly. "And I know what you are thinking."

"But you will not while I am so…" Of course he wouldn't. What man would? And why did this come now? I should be safe from this. "Of course you won't."

He stood, his brows rising high. "Eh?" He managed gracelessly. "Ah, Clarimonde." My name rolled from his lips. "The nobility can grow foolish on some things. And this is one of them. But… I am not Arthas. You are not my sworn companion, held above all others. He gave you that before he did this. He stood in front of the church, and Uther, and swore to care for you. I am not comfortable coming to you unbound, without that. You are my brethren. You mean more than that…" He kissed me gently, "Even if you look at me like that."

"Your son will be my second, my last." Again, the voice that was not mine and Baudoin took a step away from me. "Dark of hair as Arthas's is golden. Time is fleeting, sliding through our fingers, Baudoin Ironfist." He took two more steps away, wary.

"Clarimonde?" He asked cautiously. "You need to come back."

"It comes, Baudoin. You will stand through it, when others fail. Remember these words, and flee when the order comes to do so. When Arthas calls you…do not answer him. He does not, and will never, lead the Order. Uther's rule is law, and when Arthas speaks against his orders, do not answer. You must stand, when standing is harder than falling. Arthas is not the King of Lordaeron…"

"Clarimonde. Come back."

"Promise me, Baudoin. I beg of you… follow Uther's orders…" I felt sick, and the room spun alarmingly. "_Uther's, _not Arthas's. We _need _you!" My voice was rising to a near scream, and he had backed as far away as he could without exiting the room. "Promise me! Promise! _Swear _it to me!"

The abbot appeared beside him, watchful. "What is it she demands you swear, boy?" He asked, staring at me like I was a rabid dog.

"She minds me that I follow Uther, and his words are the law of the Order, not Arthas's. She begs me to turn my back on Arthas's orders when they run contrary to Uther's. She tells me he is not the King…"

"_And he will never be King of Lordaeron!" _ Someone stop this. I had to stop this.

"Sleep." The abbot pointed at me, and blackness reigned.

I woke in insulated silence; the smell of something singed and sweet hung in the normally clean air of my chamber. "I believe I've pulled her back from the fugue." A stranger's voice. "So the Order was aware of this?"

"Yes." The abbot's voice, slow. "The more time passes, the less controllable she becomes. We tried to teach her, and it looked as if we had done so successfully, then she does this."

"What started it this time?"

Baudoin's voice, dark. "She was feeling…" he paused, hunting for the correct word. "Amorous."

"Healthy young woman in a healthy pregnancy. Goes to figure." The stranger agreed, and I wished I could have bottled his logic.

"I was uncomfortable with it… she is beautiful, yes, but. When I hedged, she decided I did not find her attractive because she is with child. I told her it was because she was not bound me, sworn in any way. I kissed her, and told her she meant more to me than that, and her next words were not her own."

"And they were…?"

"They involved things I have been told to hold in confidence." Baudoin replied, and I could imagine the stubborn cast of his features.

"We already know the father, paladin. If we didn't, I would after having examined her. It is Arthas's son. I assume that is what you hold in _confidence_?"

"Aye. Uther does not want that out, wizard." The stranger did not answer, and after a moment, Baudoin continued. "She said my son would be her second, but that we were running out of time. She called me a name that is not mine. She then became frantic, demanding that I swear to ignore Arthas's orders and follow only Uther's. She told me to flee when ordered to. To stand when others fall. And that Arthas would never be King of Lordaeron."

"Running out of time." The stranger sat beside me, taking my hand. "Yes, of course. As what she sees draws nearer, it will be harder to for her to step away from it. She will make what seem to be foolish decisions, quick ones, because she feels she has no other choice. It was out of character for her to have conceived this child like this, I would guess?"

"Yes. She and Arthas seemed to be doing so well as they were. Neither one of them seemed…right…when this happened. They were both intoxicated, and neither one of them are prone to excesses of that sort."

"And she running under a prophecy which states Arthas will never be king…"

The abbot sighed, "That Arthas will never be King of Lordaeron. That he and Jaina will never have offspring. That this is the only child he will ever sire."

"And Uther will not permit her to enter the Citadel."

"He would…advise her against it, strongly." The abbot said. "Which, means he would forbid it. Clarimonde is a Knight of the Hand…."

"She is a strong seer acting on visions, with no control. She has managed to conceive a child from that already, and looks to conceive another. She is close to the Prince, and able to manipulate him. She is not acting; she is merely _re_acting to things she doesn't comprehend well enough to judge their validity. Doesn't Uther realize just how _dangerous _this is? He believes that discipline and denial will break this, and it will _not_. And he ignores the vision itself, which if it is true states that Arthas will never rule."

"Arthas will _rule_." I stated fuzzily. "But he will not be King of Lordaeron."

"We will wait for Uther." The stranger muttered, "Maybe I can talk some sense into him. And you…" the perfumed air thickened again, "Sleep it off."

I opened my eyes again, fully aware of myself. I could feel Uther's familiar presence, and he moved when I sat up. "Heard you had a hard time of it, lass." He stated, moving around the bed. "They want to send you to the Citadel. But you know that."

"I will not go." There wasn't time for such foolishness. And I didn't want to deal with Jaina. "I belong to the Order." _Through ill and fair. _

"You do, aye. Baudoin told me of your words. I find them...distressing, I admit."

Of course he did. I stood, and the babe stirred within me. I rested my hand over the flutter, and Uther sighed. "I worry, lass." He admitted, stepping up behind me, and resting his hand over mine. I slid mine from under his, and pressed the palm of his hand into the movement. "Aye, I feel him… and I feel darkness gathering."

"Yes." I agreed. "And we face it head on. It is what we are here for. I will not go to the Citadel. I am needed within the Order."

"If you needed to go, I would not deny it." He released me. "I just have little use for wizards messing with my people." He sat down at the small table under the window, resting his forehead in his hand. "Clarimonde, Arthas has gone to his father. Terenas knows you carry this child, and whose it is."

"It is much to ask him to deny it."

"True." Uther smiled ruefully. "He has a son on the way, and wishes to crow it from the rooftops. I should expect no less."

I took the seat across from him and gazed out the window. It was so peaceful, complete, but that very peace and totality was an illusion. This had been a place of death and destruction within my lifetime…. "I assume his father is a little more...pragmatic?"

"Aye. Terenas offers you… terms." Uther dropped his eyes, uncomfortable with his role in this. There was no truly right answer for this, only a mitigation of damages. He was forced to come to his ward with his king's offer to buy me off, and we were both wise enough to grasp it.

"They are?"

"If the child is female," his eyes darkened, "Terenas offers you an annuity to see her raised well. He expands your lands by a half again, with the understanding that the added lands will be hers upon her majority. She will be known as a De Nemesio, your illegitimate offspring."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, although I knew none of that mattered. It was not a girl. It was a boy…

"If the child is male. Terenas offers you an annuity, and the extra lands as mentioned before. He adds to this that he, I, and Arthas will sign the documentation naming the child as Arthas's, and a copy each held by you, the Order, and the vault. If Arthas produces no other legitimate heir, the child will be proclaimed heir of Lordaeron as spelled out by these documents. He requests that you…."

"Remain discreet as to the child's paternity."

"Aye."

I nodded slowly. "Tell the King…." I sighed, staring out the window but seeing nothing. "That I accept his terms…but give him one warning…."

Uther shifted, his eyes intent but he remained silent. "Uther, only the blind will not see this is Arthas's child. I will stay silent, I will call him by a false name, but it will not take a brilliant soul to see the obvious."

"I understand. Lass, this was why…" he let the words die, and I looked at him.

"Why you tried so hard to convince me to leave Arthas be, I know. Baudoin is so much a better choice… you are allowed to say I told you so, Uther. Arthas will forever be my swornbound. Father of my first born. Nothing can change that now."

"You sound as if you wished it could be changed, Clarimonde."

I shrugged, returning to looking at nothing out the window. One more step, one more play…. "I will not go into the Citadel. That is all they need to know."

"Aye, lass. And now this…it looks deep now, but it will get better." Uther stood, kissing me on the top of my head before he was gone out the door. I only wished I could agree. I shook off the pall of darkness and stood. It was time to chase Baudoin…

And it was remarkably easy to _catch _Baudoin. He demanded oaths, true enough, but as a common farmer from Hillsbrad, a simple handfasting was enough for him. He jumped the broom, tied the ribbons, and took me to his bed. And he was there when I delivered the promised heir of the Menethil family, holding my hand. "A boy." He whispered in awe, taking the bundle from the midwife. "Clair. A boy. A beautiful, beautiful boy…."

I took the child from him, already knowing what I would see. Yes, I already knew, but to actually clap eyes on him was painful. He was real now, not just a vision. A pair of violet eyes, eerily my own, stared shortsightedly up at me. A lick of red gold hair curled on his head… he was big, but not too big. "And his name, Clair?" Baudoin asked in a low voice, while the midwife tended to things in the corner.

"His name is Anelas. Anelas Menethil." I smoothed his hair, and he turned towards my hand like a dandelion towards the sun. "But he will be known as Keiran De Nemesio." Why I had chosen the name of my unborn brother I wasn't certain. "Send word to Uther and the Order." I sighed, settling down to examine and feed my newborn. I wasn't certain which I expected soonest, Uther or Arthas. I was awakened by a nervous Baudoin… "Clarimonde." He breathed, "Wake up. You have a visitor."

"Uther?" I asked sleepily, and dismissed it. No, Uther did not make Baudoin this nervous, nor did Arthas.

"No…." He was clumsy, awkward, and I watched him. "No, Clarimonde, that is the king… Terenas."

I nodded. I did not expect to have to deal with him, and if I did, I didn't expect to do it alone. "Thank you, Baudoin. I will…handle it from here." I stood, dressed, and lifted the baby to my shoulder. I was a Knight of the Hand, perfectly capable of walking downstairs after a simple birth.

Arthas's father stood in the Abbey's library, distantly surveying the volumes. There was much of him in Arthas, Terenas was not quite as tall, or slender, but both were blond, and while Arthas still clung to youthful beauty, his father had edged to mature dignity. "Your Majesty."

He tilted his head but did not turn. "Clarimonde De Nemesio." His tone turned the name into an indictment, and I gathered my nerves. I had done nothing to deserve this… "Only born child of Aaron De Nemesio, who is currently enjoying the hospitality of my jail, I believe."

"Yes, Your Majesty, I am his only, and he is jailed."

"Who drops his daughter in Uther's lap, knowing full well that Uther would take you and raise you beside my son."

"Yes, Your Majesty." The baby snuffled against my shoulder, and Terenas stiffened at the noise.

"And that was the plan the whole time." He ground out the words, still refusing to look upon me.

"My father sent me to the Order to marry Arthas." I confirmed and he hissed, finally spinning on me, stalking towards me.

"Arthas thinks the world of you." He spat. "He thinks you are a fine, wonderful person. Noble, graceful…. Truthful. He believes you will give him a beautiful child, worthy of the Menethil name…"

"Your Majesty." My voice was amazingly controlled and level, almost the voice of stranger, or the person I might become given time. "I freely admit to you, and have to Uther before, that the reasons why I was sent to the Order were suspect. But all of that has passed."

"Has it? I see you cradling my son's child to your shoulder. Hardly passed, Lady Clarimonde. You should be very proud of yourself…. You managed to pull off quite a trump, haven't you?"

The baby's snuffling grew louder, more insistent. Since I had insisted that he be up by taking him from his warm cradle, obviously I should feed him. I sat in the reading chair closest to the fire, and settled him to nursing.

"I suppose it's a boy." Terenas continued when I did not answer.

"He is, yes." I stroked the baby's cheek, and he grasped my finger, opening one dark violet eye to watch me.

"You were fast to take my offer. I was a little disappointed; I thought you'd hold on for more."

The baby's hand was damp and very warm, "You offered me all I would have held out for, Your Majesty. If Jaina fails to give Arthas a son, then mine should stand as his heir. I am one of the Silver Hand, Uther's heir, and swornbound to Arthas. I have sworn to serve you, to serve Lordaeron. I know what you think, and I know that I cannot change what you think. I had given up on the idea of marrying Arthas; I had set my eye on another. Like so many before him, this little one is the end result of a festival with too much alcohol thrown in. Arthas is as much to blame as I am."

"So he admits." He settled in the chair across from me, and I could feel his anger ebb. "Actually, he claims more than equal blame."

"The Order will raise this child, your majesty. I will just not allow Arthas to deny him. I will give him the name of the son my father wanted so desperately, call him that at all times, but my heart and soul call him by another."

"And that name is?"

"Anelas. Anelas Menethil."

He nodded slowly. "And what part do you believe my son should play in his upbringing?"

My mind whispered none, but that was impolitic. I had to pull this off sanely, graciously… "As I said, I have found another. He will be the one to raise my children as father. Arthas is my swornbound. He comes second. Uther is my father, he comes third. He will be raised as one of the Hand, surrounded by the Order."

"When he is done, may I see him?"

"Certainly." I handed him over, full and sleepy, when he was, and the King sighed in defeat.

"He is lovely, Clarimonde. The third most beautiful baby I've ever seen." After Arthas and his sister, of course. I only nodded assent, and took him back when Terenas had seen enough. He pulled a packet from the satchel resting from his shoulders and rolled out parchments, carefully filling in blanks. He sanded them, and rolled up two of the three copies, returning them to his packet, his satchel. "The document I promised." He stated as he left, the door closing behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

Four months later, I was pregnant again, and the visions stopped. They did not abate, but simply and abruptly ceased. I had completed everything I was driven to do, and was allowed to know no more. I returned to Stratholme in the beginning, but as the time to welcome Baudoin's son into the world drew near, I yearned for a home to call my own, and asked to be sent home to Brill. As Brill was close to Lordaeron, and considered safe, Uther agreed readily. Of course, history would tell a reader that Brill was not the safest place to be that season…but I was blind to that.

I birthed my second, and last, at my family's estates near Brill. Bayard was, as foreseen, as dark as Anelas was fair, a sturdy, heavy baby. He had his father's brandy hazel eyes and my hair. He was so beautiful…and his father radiated joy. There were no terms, no documents, and no confrontations. It was so simple, no politics, no other woman. No king came after his birth, only Uther with a wide smile. Again, a glorious time, if fleeting. When my mother heard I had taken up residence at the estates again, she returned, and I felt for her. The estates were in immaculate order, of course, under Uther's handling, but I was hardly in immaculate order myself. I'd born two children in just over a year….married neither of their fathers. Baudoin was in Lordaeron, close but not with me, and he would not be worthy in her eyes anyway. Anelas sat on the rug next to me, amusing himself by trying to stack colorful blocks while I nursed his new brother. There was so much of Baudoin in this one, exactly as there was so much of Arthas in Anelas… My sons were reflections of their fathers…

"Clarimonde."

"My mother." Bayard opened his eyes at my voice, and Anelas glanced over his shoulder at the newcomer, while I steeled myself for the inevitable confrontation.

"I heard…that you are in residence."

"For now." I smoothed the baby's dark hair, and his eyes fell closed again. So beautiful… "I will return to Stratholme in due time."

"Have you lost your mind?" She demanded, and I almost laughed. She sounded so much like Uther had when I told him I was expecting Anelas… and that was a laughable correlation. Uther and my mother….

"How so?" Bayard had fed enough, and was well on his way to sleep, a heavy limp weight on my chest.

"You have children…but no husband. Now, none will marry you."

I shrugged. I had everything I needed, Uther, Arthas, Baudoin, my children, my Order. There was no need to marry. Anelas was Arthas's heir, and Bayard mine. "No need for it." I stated. "_My_ sons, _my _heirs. Kieran and Bayard De Nemesio."

She shrank visibly. "You have sons." She murmured, shaking her head. "Kieran…. Why?"

At the sound of the only name he'd ever heard used as his own, Anelas stared at her. When she proved to be no more interesting than calling his name, he returned to stacking. "Your father will kill you." She stated, regaining some strength.

"My father is in jail." I pointed out the obvious, and she shrugged, coming into the light. Lordaeron, or perhaps, freedom from my father, had been kind to her. She looked younger, less pained than I was accustomed to, I could see a shadow of myself in her now. "And I'd like to see him try." I might not be a paragon, such as Uther, Baudoin, or Arthas, but I was still a paladin. More than competent and I had few doubts I could take my father in fair combat, or knowing him, foul combat.

"He'll be paroled eventually. The King will not hold him forever."

That was a truth, and more of a truth with Anelas's birth. Those debts had been forgiven, and Terenas would not turn my father's incarceration into a death sentence. "So?" I asked. "The lands remain mine no matter what."

She paused, much closer to the corridor than I was, and a split second later I heard what she had…the scurrying feet of the seneschal. "My…" he glanced at me, then my mother. "Ladies. We have visitors…" he swallowed nervously, poor man. The last visitor I'd had like this had turned out to be the King himself. Light only knew _who _this one was… Whoever it was, they weren't willing to rest on protocol, and the seneschal squirted into the room as they hit the stairs.

"Clair!" Arthas appeared in the doorway. "I heard Baudoin is a lucky, lucky man." He looked good, very good, loose amber hair flowing over his shoulders, helm under his elbow, armor shining in the golden light of my offices. "We've come to see the babe, and to impose upon your hospitality."

"My household is yours, Arthas." I chuckled, and his face split with a grin. "And yours…" The trailing man had appeared behind Arthas, another of the Order, Gavinrad. "My brothers." I started to rise when I recognized Gavinrad. Arthas I would remain seated for, but this one, no. He had been one of those beside Uther when the Order was born…

"Stay." He ordered in a deep voice, "My sister. We have come to admire your new babe and rest under your roof. You do not need to rise for me, in fact…." He sat in the chair between me and the fire. "I will sit with you. So… this is Baudoin's boy, eh?"

Arthas plucked Anelas up from the floor and balanced him on his shoulders, moving up to me across the rug. Gavinrad glanced at them, a slight line forming between his brows, then his gaze fell back to me. I moved the finely woven blanket that covered the baby's head, and he raised a brow. "Aye. And his eyes?"

I looked down, the babe was fast asleep, his father's thick, curling lashes resting on his cheeks. "The color of dark brandy."

Gavinrad nodded. "And the Order is blessed," he intoned, gently smoothing the thick shock of dark hair. "Another is born in the face of adversity…"

Arthas went to a knee, bowing his head. "To carry the beacon of the Light onwards." His tenor joined Gavinrad's deeper tones.

"Grant us his name, sister." Gavinrad asked, his gray eyes solemn.

"Bayard. Bayard De Nemesio." I breathed, then studied them both. The day was not fair, and both were wet, their blue cloaks hanging heavy from rain. "Mother." I said, drawing both men's attention to her, and the seneschal hiding in the corner beside her. "Lord Gavinrad and the prince will need rooms, and a meal, as soon as possible. Can it be arranged?"

She curtseyed nervously and vanished, the seneschal on her heels. "What brings you two to Brill?"

"Passing through." Arthas sat on the cassock before me, his eyes on the babe while Anelas ran his hair through small fingers. "Another fine strong lad, Clair. You out do yourself." His voice was wary and his eyes dark when they rested on me. It had been easy to bear Anelas, having Bayard so soon after, no. I knew I looked bad; there had been this same shadow in Uther's eyes.

"I am done with children, Arthas. There will be no more. From here on out, I serve the Order."

"It is not that we don't want you have more, Clair. We're just worried. You ask too much of yourself. You and Baudoin make a fine couple, to say now that there will be no more may be premature, but promise me you'll wait."

It was a safe promise. "I promise, Arthas. I will wait."

He smiled, his eyes bright again. "Thank you, Clarimonde. And yes, this one is a beauty. Baudoin is lucky." He rested his hand on Anelas's thigh, distracted for a moment. Of course Baudoin was lucky. He claimed his own son, outright, the freedom of a farmer's son over a prince.

"I will put him down and check on the arrangements." I stood, "My mother is undoubtedly in the kitchens, trying frantically to come up with a lavish feast on no warning. If I let her have her way, you'll never eat. Come with me, and I'll take you to your rooms on my way down."

Thankfully, the guest chambers were ready, recently cleaned after Baudoin and Uther had left. I settled them to change into warm, dry clothing, and left Bayard to sleep off his meal in my own cluttered rooms, before slipping down the service stairs to the kitchen. As expected, my mother was frantic.

"The prince!" She hissed at me, "And you introduce him _after _the other!"

Such a breach of etiquette, yes. "Gavinrad comes before Arthas in the Order. He is the one to be introduced first." I surveyed the disaster. We were living with the barest minimum of foods and staff, my father away, my mother away. No need or inclination to entertain.

"We have _nothing_." She wailed. "Nothing for a prince."

I shrugged, peering into the cold room. A roast of beef, herbed and already cooked, a ham, and heavy links of sausage… butter, clotting cream. A good deep yellow cheese, and a cream onion soup. "Heat this." I ordered, placing the soup pot in her hands, "While I check the safe."

The safe yielded bread, good hearty dark bread, and a nice looking apple tart. It wasn't truly as bad as I'd feared. I could set a table in less than an hour with this. True, we had nothing for a prince, but we had plenty for my brothers. She had placed the soup to warm while I brought the roast in, and placed it in the warmer. "Go below and find…" No wine, not with this. Arthas was not much of a wine drinker anyway, and I doubted if Gavinrad was either. "Arthas prefers mead to wine. Find a good dark mead, and an ale." She probably knew the cellars better than I did, anyway. "I'll set in the family dining room."

"The prince is not family." She replied, scandalized. "You can't feed him cold room leftovers in the family dining room, Clarimonde!"

"Arthas is my family." I responded slowly. "I can, and I will, treat him as such. If he wanted to be treated as the Prince, and not my brother, he would have warned us of his coming. He arrives here as my brother. So he is."

Gavinrad stood in the hallway when I passed through to set, and he nodded to me. "I hope we are not too much of an imposition?" He asked slowly, a big man in common clothes.

"Never." I disagreed. "My mother merely wishes to treat Arthas's arrival like the prince has come with no warning. Tells me he is too good for my cold room leftovers. Too good for my family dining room."

He nodded, falling into step beside me. "Of course. We are, however, not too good for your leftovers or your family room, if you consider them good enough. Your house is gracious and your rooms comfortable."

"Yes." I set the table quickly, and motioned him to sit at the head. He was the highest ranked member of the Order, he came first. My mother arrived with the jugs, not bothering to hide her doubts, which deepened obviously when she saw where I'd placed Gavinrad. "The food is ready to come up." She said, and Gavinrad grinned… whether at the prospect of being fed, or at her blatant disapproval, I didn't know. Perhaps both. Probably both.

Arthas arrived then, taking the seat next to Gavinrad without a second glance. He was also commonly garbed, in linen and wool. The food came and both men seemed more than happy with the offering, taking large portions while I took my place at the foot of the table. "Mother, sit." I said, and she eyed the only remaining place, across from Arthas, with trepidation.

"I don't bite." He promised, around a mouthful, and I swear she nearly fainted. "The Order doesn't set much stock with finery. We're all brothers and sisters, family." He chuckled. "If I didn't consider Clair that, I would have never turned up on her doorstep unannounced. Where is Baudoin, by the way? I was expecting him to be here, you just birthed his son…"

My mother took the chair, now that the conversation turned to rumor; it was too fascinating to leave. And this rumor came straight from a prince's very full mouth. Gavinrad took her motion as the opening to start shuffling food down table, and presented her with the roast platter.

"Baudoin is in Court, in Lordaeron. He was here when I gave birth, but was called away."

"Not easy to be Uther's chosen replacement." Gavinrad noted, lifting the lid from the soup tureen and taking an appreciative smell. "I thought you claimed these were your cold room remains?"

"It is. Cold roast, ham, sausage. The soup was lunch." My mother flinched at my words, but Gavinrad ignored it, ladling a great bowlful. "Baudoin promises to return as soon as he can."

"He will." Arthas stated, slicing cheese and bread. "He loves you dearly."

My mother made a noise, and Arthas glanced at her. When he did not return to eating, and made it obvious he wasn't going to look away until she said it, she finally spoke. "Not dearly enough to marry her, I guess. Who is this _Baudoin_?"

"Baudoin is…" to say the words before these two made it truly binding. "My handfasted. Bayard's father."

The color left my mother's complexion, completely. Noble ladies might throw bastards, as I had borne Anelas. But only commoners handfasted. The statement also puzzled Arthas, but not Gavinrad. "Boy wouldn't touch you without an oath." He mumbled when Arthas glanced at him. "And his fasting oath was enough for him."

I grinned confirmation, and my mother moaned in defeat. "Clarimonde, what did I teach you?" She asked, and I shrugged.

"You taught me false, but I learned better. You taught me that ladies don't want that. That is what a mistress is for, my job is only to bear the children and ignore the mistress."

"_Not _in front of the Prince!"

"You asked in front of him, and I answered!" I snapped back, and Arthas regarded us both as if we were amazingly funny.

"He'll know you are no virgin, that you…." She fought for an appropriate word. "Cavort…"

I stared at her peevishly. Arthas knew I was no virgin, because he'd made me that way. He'd done the cavorting first. Baudoin had come after, to help keep things together. "I think the two children are a fair testament to all that I am no virgin." Much of the mirth had fled Arthas's face, obviously his mind followed mine.

"Enough of this." He ground out. "Clarimonde is my sister, my swornbound. Baudoin is a brother under arms, and a fine example of a man. I am…" he stared at me, "Ecstatic that she has found him. I could ask for no better. They bless us and grace us. I will hear no more aspersions against either of them."

She had been colorless, and that was an improvement over the green tint she gained. "Clarimonde." She whispered, and I nodded.

"You may leave." I stated, and she all but ran from the table. Arthas waited until the door was secured behind her before he dropped his forehead into his hand.

"Clair…" he breathed, while Gavinrad continued to eat, unperturbed.

"Is the manner of life, Prince Arthas." He said into the silence. "You are the first with a woman, the first to…" he twisted his lips in a wry smile. "Cavort. She settles with your boy, that you cannot accept. And you get to watch others treat her poorly for it."

"It's not fair."

"No, it's not." Gavinrad agreed. "For neither of you. At least the Order will accept her and Baudoin… and most others will. She pays by knowing that there are those who whisper behind her back, call her whore and others, while you pay by denying your firstborn. But enough of that. We are together, there is good food. Enjoy it."

They left early the next day, and my mother sulked, disappearing to visit a friend in Brill. It was the last time I saw her whole, well.


	9. Chapter 9

She returned soon after dinner, pale and worn, carrying a basket of plum tarts. "I think I might be coming down with something." She muttered, leaving the basket on the table beside me. "Have one, they're quite good… I think I will lie down for awhile."

They were quite good, I had more than one, but they didn't stay with me long. I vomited them all back up a few minutes later, and felt none the worse afterwards. I settled my stomach with bread and cheese, feeding Bayard as I did so.

"Milady." My mother's maid, my father's mistress, both the same person, stood in the doorway. She smiled when I looked up at her, but she was concerned. "Your mother appears to be quite ill. We could send for a priest from town…"

"No. I will see to her. It's probably those tarts..." I motioned at the basket. "They made me quite ill. They should probably be destroyed."

"You don't seem ill."

"I am a paladin. We don't get sick easily…and don't stay it long. I will take care of her." I sighed, replacing Bayard in his cradle and climbing the stairs. She was much sicker than she had been just a few hours earlier, drenched in sweat and tossing. A simple prayer to heal would break this, no problem.

It didn't. Nor did the others I tried. When the prayers failed, which they had never done before, I resorted to herbs and poultices. They failed as well, and by midnight, I sent for Brill's priest. He took much more time than I had expected to arrive, and while I expected him to be sleepy from the late night call, I didn't expect the exhaustion he greeted me with.

"My mother is quite unwell." I stated, and he stared at me. "I have tried everything the Order taught me, and I cannot break this fever. Prayers, herbs…nothing seems to help."

"Then she is the same as half the town." He replied. "I will look, but if you cannot turn it with what you've told me, I have no other recourse."

"If the fever does not break soon…" I tried to get my mind around his words. "Half the town?"

"Yes. This sickness spreads quickly, and nothing seems to turn it. Are you well?"

"I felt unwell earlier, but it passed. It seemed to be just something I ate which did not agree with me."

"You have babes here, I hear." He began, a warning deep in his words. Anelas, Bayard… if I could not push this from my mother, then how could I hope to help them? I followed him into my mother, watching him. He did nothing for her, turning back to me. "Lady Clarimonde." He said slowly, and I recognized a shadow of Uther under his words. "Your mother has the undivided attention of a Knight of the Order here. I could bring her back to Brill, settle her in the Chapel with the others, and she will get what attention we can give her, alongside all the others. I feel you are better equipped to help her than we are. Just one thing…"

"What?"

"If she hasn't died by dawn, leave her and take those babes of yours away from here. I will send someone just after dawn, when the way is light enough for you to ride, to see if you have left her and she will be brought to Brill. Allow no one but yourself to handle those children. Don't feed the older one until you are well on the road, no food or water from here. " He stared at me. "And the younger, do you nurse him, or does he have a nursemaid?"

"I nurse him."

"Good. You should be immune." He nodded at me, and was gone. Two hours later, my mother was also gone, permanently. I left her room, wandering blindly, but the house was empty… what little staff we'd had was quite gone, fled. I locked the doors behind them, if they were gone; I wanted them to stay that way. I returned to the family wing, pacing the hallway, counting the doors. Hers. Mine. My father's. The guest chambers… spin, return, do it again. Bayard woke in the small hours, crying for me, and I slid into my dim chambers. They were the same ones I'd had as a child, crowded now with cradle, the cot that Anelas slept on, my bed, all my things. For a moment I was afraid to nurse, remembering my sudden fit of illness earlier, but Bayard was too small to let go without. He latched on, nursing with his normal vigor, all noisy breaths and swallows. Anelas slept, oblivious; face down on his cot, rump high in the air, when I heard the first noise. A thump…stealthy and slithery, and every hair on my body stood to immediate attention. It was _wrong_.

"Shh...little one." I whispered, peeling the baby off. He'd scream bloody murder for that, but oddly enough, he remained silent, watching me out of solemn eyes when I replaced him in his cradle. I drew my sword, slipping into the darkened hallway. The noise had come from my mother's room… But she was dead. I'd open the door, and she'd still be lying there, dead. It was still ajar, and I could see a slice of the bed through it…and I was wrong. She wouldn't be lying there, still dead. It was empty, and I chanted a prayer.

Even forewarned, I almost did not survive. The interior doors of the estate were three inch thick oak, bound with brass. This one hit me hard, stunning me, breaking my nose, and bowling me down the hallway. My training kicked in, and I rolled with it, coming back to my feet.

_She hasn't been dead long enough for that _was the almost normal thought that returned after the stun began to fade. Dead for just four hours, she shouldn't be… that. That had been dead for days, at least, rotting as it walked towards me. "Back!" I growled, hitting her with a prayer. It wouldn't work, just as the heals hadn't… This was the first of the undead I'd encountered, all my training was strictly theoretical…I'd spent so much time with child that I had not been exposed to this.

The heals which should have saved her did not, the prayers to destroy an undead did. I gave into frustration, rage and fear, hacking what remained into pieces too small to rise again, then went right back into my room, picked up Bayard, and replaced him on my breast. I paced the hallway again, carefully maneuvering over her pieces as I did, waiting for the night to break.

When it finally did, I pulled on a pair of trousers and boots, packed Bayard into a satchel, and carried Anelas out to my charger. I abandoned Brill and my estates, heading down the road towards Lordaeron.

"Halt!" A young initiate of the Order, not even a true paladin, stood in the middle of the road, pathetically small. Several felled trees rested across the way behind him, a roadblock. A quarantine.

"No one is to pass." He ordered, artificially lowering his voice. It would have been laughable except for the gravity of the situation.

"Where is your officer?" I demanded. I could take him, pass him by. I could even convince the charger to jump the break, except for the children I had with me.

"Right here, Lady Clarimonde. Where do you ride?" A taller, older man stepped from the woods, taking my horse's bridle in hand. He felt…resigned. He knew he should try to keep me here, but couldn't.

"The barracks in Lordaeron. I will send word with the dispatch, to Stratholme, and then I will return."

"And the babes?"

I stared back at him challengingly. "Will remain at the barracks. I will not bring them back here."

He nodded, releasing the bridle. "Go with the Light, Lady. Take your little ones far away."

I clapped heels to the charger and loped away, cutting through the line and back up onto the road, before letting the horse have his head. And I rode, a flight eerily reminiscent of my father's flight to Lordaeron, only this time I was the parent.

I made the gates of Lordaeron barely before they closed for the night, riding through and ignoring the stares of the guards. I could only imagine what I looked like, a woman, in a nightgown, pants, boots, riding a paladin's charger. I was covered with my own blood, and my face felt bruise stiffened. I rode through the city with little care for those in my way, most evaded me, and I evaded those who didn't. I rode straight into the barracks courtyard, empty now that night was falling.

A stableman, no member of the Order, moved towards me. "No! Come no closer!" I shouted, and he stopped, backing away. "Baudoin! _Baudoin!_" He wouldn't be here. He'd be at the Keep…

"Right here, Clair…" The shadows let loose of him, and he moved carefully up to the heaving charger. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at home, you shouldn't be riding yet…" he got a good glimpse of my face then, the loser of the meeting with the door, and his own face went granite. "Who hit you?"

"Long story." I said, and his expression told me I could make it quite short if I really wanted to. "Baudoin. There is plague in Brill…" I untied Anelas from me, lowering him to the yard's stones. "We need…." The vision of my mother rising again flashed in my head. "We need paladins to… put the victims… down."

"What?"

"They're dying… but they don't _stay _that way. They're rising as undead. All of Brill is sick with it."

"Arthas, Gavinrad?"

"Rode on before people started sickening." He picked up Anelas, holding him to his shoulder, and I unslung the satchel, giving it over as well. "I need to make reports, and return to Brill…"

There was an argument in his eyes that didn't find its way to his lips. "I will get a force together and follow you." He promised. "Go with the Light, Clarimonde, and be careful."

I rode back after dispatching reports and armoring myself at the barracks, my way easier in spite of the darkness, since the children were safe in Lordaeron, and once again, I hit Brill's line at dawn. This time, however, the break was devoid of people, and my heart lurched.

The break's defenders were in Brill, trying to maintain some semblance of order when I arrived. "Lady Clarimonde." The same paladin as an eternity earlier, saluted me. "Did you make it through?"

"I did. The Barracks at Lordaeron is alerted. I sent dispatches onward…"

"You are Uther's heir." The man mused slowly and I frowned at him. "Arthas's swornbound."

"Yes."

"Then you should go to Stratholme, and Uther. It could take a lot of time for the dispatches to make their way… less for you. And you know exactly what we're up against here. You can make certain Uther understands just how dire this is. If we don't stop this here, at Brill, it's over."

"Right."

I left Brill, again… headed not for Lordaeron, but a much closer cabal of mages, capable of moving me to Stratholme in moments. As Uther said, they had their uses…. The gates to the Tower's yard were locked tight when I arrived, and I studied the wall.

"Hail the Tower!" I yelled, beating a plated fist against the gate. There was silence for a long moment, too long, before a man garbed in violet appeared on the wall.

"Turn away!" He called down. "Return to whence you came!" He was too far away for me to clearly see, but I could feel the sickness in him.

"I am Clarimonde De Nemesio, Knight of the Silver Hand!" I bellowed back. "I have already been exposed to the illness, you will not infect me! Let me in!"

He called something down the yard beyond, but as it was not focused to me, I did not hear it, but the gates opened. I rode in, closing my mind to what my eyes saw. They'd be dead in mere hours, all of them. "This is elsewhere?" The speaker from the wall descended to my side, he was old, tired…and dying.

"Brill… the entire population. Only those who are immune still stand."

"Brill had paladins, priests…." He wavered on his feet, and I launched a prayer at him. I needed him alive, long enough to open the portal to Stratholme… "Thank you." He coughed, hanging onto the warm side of my charger for support.

"We have not been able to slow this at all. I need to go to Stratholme, to tell Uther in person. We must act quickly, and I fear the dispatch will take too long."

He nodded, pushing away from the horse. "Of course, lady. I will open the portal immediately and send you through. Is there anything I should do…?" He paused, as if to consider other words, then let the sentence fall. He knew, I knew…

"Decapitate your dead, lock the gates again. And I pray for you." So harsh. This was why the Order had such a reputation… If he found it cold, he did not show it, only bowed his head in acquiescence, leading the way to the portal room. I could feel the dying, and the dead, all around me…pressing in on me. He cast the portal, and the last thing I saw before passing through was him move to take an ornamental axe from the wall….

After Brill, filled with the weight of the dying and desperate, and the Mage Tower, Stratholme felt secure and well. If I wanted to, I could just close my eyes and call it a nightmare. It was warm, sunny…the mage on the other side of the portal surprised to see me.

"Greetings, lady knight." She murmured, her tone correct and her eyes dying with curiosity. I gave her barely a glance, moving away, but I caught her fading words… "Damnable paladins." But I had no time to play.

Stratholme was perfectly normal, but the grounds of the Order were not. There were a great many paladins there, more than normal, and older than the usual, and they prepared to move... None hailed me, but all slipped out of my way as I moved to where Uther should be. He stood in the great open expanse of the riding hall, watching, giving an occasional murmured order when approached.

"Clarimonde." He eyed me for a long moment. "We received your reports from Brill. What news now?"

"The majority of Brill has died." He gave no outward sign of dismay at my words, stoically taking the news. His page, a luxury he only allowed himself when he needed one, blanched pale. "My mother among them. I did everything I could, everything I had learned…" Uther's eyes darkened, but he still held his tongue. "And nothing helped. After she had died…" My lips trembled, and he dropped a hand to my shoulder but still did not interrupt. "I went to feed the new babe, and I heard a noise. She… rose, Uther. Undead. Many of those in Brill are doing the same. The Mage Tower is infected, as well. They will die…"

He sighed, shaking his head. "I have your reports from Brill. And others from the region, most of Southern Lordaeron is sending reports of some nature. Not as…dire… as yours, so far… just of an illness that will not break. You are well?"

"I seem to be. I was not well for awhile after my mother became ill, but it passed quickly. I'm tired…and she hit me with a door, but I don't feel sick."

He raised his hand, his lips moving in a prayer. Light seemed to flow to him, and he studied me. "You have been exposed, yes, but fought it away. So far, Lordaeron itself appears to be safe, my reports have it moving north, away from the capital."

And my children. I nodded gratefully at the words, while accepting the underlying warning. The _capital _was south, but _Stratholme _was north.

"What now?" I demanded, and he clapped a hand on my shoulder.

"You need sleep. You've done your duty well, Clair. Yours were the first reports I received… Baudoin determined they were too important to go by dispatch. They remain the most complete and detailed…without them…I'd still be thinking we had nothing more than a minor illness."

I nodded, fighting to remain awake and listen to his words. It had been easier in Brill, where focus and need had kept me going. But here, warm, safe, home… so much more difficult. Uther dismissed me by turning away, giving me a shoulder as he switched his attention to the next problem. I dragged myself, as I had so many times before, to my cell and fell into a deep, but disturbed, sleep. I believed then that by the time I woke, it would all be under control. Uther would work a miracle, as he always managed to.

"Clarimonde."

I opened my eyes to false dimness…. It was bright again outside, but the shutters in my room were tight. I had slept a long time, perhaps too long, and I blinked. "Yes?"

"Uther requests your presence in the riding hall. Armed, armored and ready to go. Arthas calls us."

Arthas? I stumbled out of bed, not bothering to try to identify the youth sent to awaken me, and he did not bother to stay and be identified, carrying on. I harnessed quickly, gathered my weapon, and hurried to the hall.

Uther was already mounted, as were the men with him… his attention was on a frantic Jaina, dwarfed by his charger beside him. "You have to _hurry_!" She insisted. "Arthas cannot stand for long! If he does not…the town…."

I summoned my charger, pulling him from where I'd left him at Brill, and mounted quickly. Jaina's panic was infectious, her words worse. "Clarimonde is here." Uther sighed, and I was suddenly struck by how old and tired he looked. "We are ready to ride, Jaina. Clarimonde, take Lady Proudmoore behind you, we ride fast."

I nodded, bracing myself and extending a hand to Jaina. My charger was not any smaller than the others, but _I _was, at least seven stone lighter than the lightest of the other paladins gathering. And Jaina did not weigh much more than that seven stone by herself. Together, we would not burden him unduly.

Uther nodded sharply when I had her up behind me, her arms wrapped around my belly. He spun and rode, fast as promised, straight down the road towards Lordaeron. It was a long, silent ride to the River, again a ride I'd prefer not to make, under heavy pressure. Arthas was in trouble. Even without Jaina's words to that effect, I could feel it. All was not right with my world; a nagging, itching concern grew in my heart.


	10. Chapter 10

We crossed the Thondroril River, and everything changed. The last time I'd been through this area, it had been farmlands, healthy, wholesome. Now it reeked of sickness, death, and undeath. It was Brill, all over again. I could feel the despair, the panic, the horror, not confined to a small area like Brill, but spread over miles. What had happened while Uther let me sleep? The Order had been given warning of this, as soon as humanly possible…and I knew it had been too late. What of my babies, in Lordaeron? Baudoin? The king? The City itself, the gleaming heart of Lordaeron, thousands strong?

The farther westward we pushed, the worse it got. Finally, at the crossroads to Hearthglen to the north, and Andorhal to the south, it became palpable. More than just a feeling, it was cries in the air, smoke, and a physical stench hanging in a wan fog. Uther's face was carved in stone, emotionless; he did not speak as he turned his back on Andorhal and pointed resolutely north.

I nodded when his eyes fell on me, slamming down my visor and drawing my sword. Arthas was at Hearthglen, and things were going badly. It was all I needed to know. I'd figure out the details later.

My charger sensed the need, digging his great plate hooves into the unpaved, rutted track, his tail cascading out behind him like a flag as he threw himself into a great gallop. He gained speed with every stride, and I half expected Jaina to complain as we drew even with Uther, but she remained silent, still clinging to me.

I was expecting trouble; I was not expecting a full scale assault on Hearthglen. And even if I had been, I was not expecting just _what _had pressed Arthas into such a desperate defense of this town. I'd seen at least one before, in my life… My mother, risen. That had been a single undead, fitting in the darkness. This, this was thousands of risen undead, moving in the brightness of afternoon. These had been allowed to go much longer than my mother had before I put her down, a wave of mindless, shambling, rotting death. This was…. _Andorhal_.

Hearthglen stood, her population yet lived…this many would have had to come from the great trade center of Andorhal, behind us. Andorhal had fallen. Brill had fallen. Hearthglen hard pressed, held up only by Arthas and his men. A quarter of Lordaeron, rotting from its heart outwards.

_"To Arthas!" _I bellowed, and if it was possible, my charger found more speed. I could see Arthas glowing, shining, channeling the Light, my _brother _in duress. The charger bowled through the mass of dead flesh, ears pinned back and teeth bared, his eyes weasel bright as he brought me to Arthas's back.

"Thank the Light… Jaina." Arthas sighed, "You brought them in time."

"My brother, we stand beside you." I answered when she was silent, sliding from my charger. She steadied herself by holding on to my stirrup leather, her legs undoubtedly shaking from the long ride.

"I did." She confirmed the obvious, eying her surroundings. "They won't be enough."

"Enough to hold Hearthglen." He growled back, slapping a hand down on my knee.

_Enough to pull Arthas out. _My mind stated, but I remained silent. He didn't want to hear it, and obviously Jaina didn't want to say it either. He was exhausted, content to watch the Order push the line back away from him. He was also…

"Arthas, my brother." I sighed, keeping the bulk of the charger at his back, watching Uther and my brethren push back the assault. "It is no affront to require the aid of the Order to do the workings of the Light." He was embarrassed, angry. He'd had to send Jaina away, to Uther, to request help. "It is my life to stand behind you." I stated. I had no idea _why _they were here…last I knew, Jaina had been in Dalaran, and Arthas riding from Brill eastward, with Gavinrad. But I'd obviously slept through a lot.

"Clarimonde." Arthas hissed, grasping my charger by the limbs of his curb bit. "Andorhal is infected. And Andorhal ships…what?"

My stomach plunged. Brill received her grain from Andorhal, the central distribution hub of the region. The tarts…. My mother… Brill… _Stratholme_. "Grain to Stratholme." I said through numb lips. The estate had remained untouched, because with such a small staff on hand, we had not finished an earlier allotment of grain. Only after my mother had gone to town had she become infected. Anelas remained healthy because he'd been fed out of our stores. Bayard, nursing, had never been in contact.

"We have to stop it from reaching Stratholme." He ground out the words, releasing the charger's head. "If it does…."

I said nothing. Stratholme was not only the home of the Order; it was the sub capital for the entirety of eastern Lordaeron. Tens of thousands would die, and not stay down…. Half of Lordaeron would perish. His eyes fell on Jaina, whose attention was firmly planted on Uther, and he pushed the charger over slightly. "Where are the children?" He asked softly, and I leaned forward in my stirrups.

"Baudoin has them at Lordaeron." Lordaeron, which did not receive its grain from Andorhal. It had its own distribution point, outside of the city, bringing grain in straight from Hillsbrad. Hopefully, it was enough to preserve the capital, her thousands in population, her King, Baudoin, and my children. The news did not lighten Arthas's mood, his eyes were still dark.

"Clair, this is a deliberate attack, not an illness. I cannot guarantee that he has not already infected Lordaeron's granaries. I slew him at Andorhal, but I fear it is already too late."

I didn't ask who…if he was slain, then labels became worthless. And I didn't want to play guessing games, Lordaeron was a question, but Stratholme was not. "We must ride for Stratholme." I stated the obvious. Baudoin had the babes. He had the much vaunted common sense that I and Arthas apparently lacked. I had placed my faith in him by giving him the babes, and should stand beside it. And Bayard was his; he loved the babe as much as I did….

"Exactly." Arthas agreed, calling his own charger. "We ride for Stratholme." He said to Uther, who frowned at the fairly obvious subversion of his command.

"Stratholme has the majority of the Order within its walls. They can handle this, Arthas. We must handle Andorhal, and aid these people."

"These people are dead already, Uther. Stratholme is not. I am going, and Clair will go with me…"

Uther's eyes flowed over me, and I set my expression to stillness. He would not ask me to abandon Arthas, not after he himself had pushed me to be the prince's swornbound… "Aye, the lass will go with you, Arthas. Remember, however, that she is a responsibility as well as an honor…. Take her not into undue harm because you are angry and frightened…"

"Uther. Is Stratholme in danger?" My words were amazingly strong and forceful. He closed his eyes, tightening his lips. It was a straightforward demand, and one he must answer truthfully.

"Aye, lass." He admitted painfully, and I nodded.

"Then I ride with Arthas."

Again, I rode. The province was a blur of rolling hoof beats and trees passing by as we rode back. We were forced to pause, water the chargers, and a large raven hopped boldly by me. I watched it, and it stopped, tilted its head exaggeratedly, and regarded me through a steady golden eye.

No ordinary raven… but it was not here for me. It cawed, and launched itself into the air, headed for the clearing that Arthas and Jaina stood in. It was there for them, my path was settled. I went back to monotonously walking the two chargers, mine and Arthas's, offering them a sip at the apex of each circle. I was tired; heart, soul and body, and I knew Stratholme would bring me worse. But I was a Hand, Uther's heir, and Arthas's swornbound. It was too late to flee the inevitable.

We made Stratholme early the next morning, and for heartbeat, I almost relaxed. It looked as calm as could be expected, only the large number of recalled Hands and their heightened alarm was different than every other day. We rode straight through, to the granary on the outskirts of the town. Even though I knew it, deep in the darkness of my soul, to see the breached crates scattering the yard, each bearing the marks of Andorhal, was a crushing blow.

"When were these distributed?" Arthas demanded, waving at them, while my mind flipped into strategic and tactical mode. Four access points to the yard, no immediate threat to myself or the prince… but I could feel the same rising gather that I had felt at Brill. Now I recognized it for what it was, this was how I sensed the infection flowing around me. The upcoming death of over a hundred thousand. The weight settled around my heart, pressed on my lungs, and I was suddenly unable to breathe.

"Yesterday, milord." The yardsman stated warily, and Arthas let go with a blistering curse, pirouetting his exhausted charger to go head to tail with mine.

"We're too late." He muttered his eyes black and flitting over the yard.

"Yes. I can feel the plague rising, as I felt it at Brill…" And the mage tower.

"They must…" he reached across the expanse between the chargers and grasped my shoulder. "Not rise. They must be put down before they die like this."

"Yes, my Prince." That was an order that Arthas, paladin of the Hand, could not make. That was an order that required Arthas Menethil, Crown prince of Lordaeron, to order it, and the Light save us all.

I stood, motionless in the yard, while Arthas rode back to Jaina and Uther, my eyes never leaving the nervous yardsman. There was an argument, louder and louder, Uther would not order, or condone, such actions. There had to be another way. Arthas's voice, grinding…was the Order too fragile to do what needed to be done? Would it not stand when it was needed the most? If it would not, then it was no longer needed… were the Hand traitors to not follow these orders? I heard it all, my gaze never straying from my first target. I heard the dissolution of the Order, and I heard Arthas's orders to those of us who would commit to what must be done. Slay them….all.

I rode down the yardsman, killing him in a split second as I boiled out onto the streets of Stratholme, which I knew so well. I started out on horseback, with a sword, but that took too long…there were too many. When I realized that, I went to flames, climbing the walls of the city and moving along them to drop torches onto the thatched roofs of the residences. Where my mind was during this, I couldn't really say. It was an exercise in massacre, and I hadn't realized just how good I was at it until then.

It seemed like it took forever, looking back I would say it took all day. It had been morning when we started, and the sun was low when it was pretty much ended. The fires would burn for days still, but nothing lived within the walls of the city I still considered to be home. I returned to Arthas's back, silent, watching Jaina stumble towards him. _"Arthas, what have you done?" _She wailed, and I envied her. She could still point fingers. It was what have _you _done, not what have _we _done. She was still clean of this sin. I could sense Uther fairly close by; he'd retreated, but not quit the area. He was also clean of this. We'd done the dirty work for them.

"What I had to." He answered numbly, but there was the stirring of anger beneath his words. How dare they? My charger snorted wearily, shaking his mane, and I stroked him, leaning against his bulk, watching as Arthas and Jaina moved away from me.

"Clair, lass." It was almost Uther's voice, and I looked over into his eyes. Almost Uther, he looked decades older, his eyes dead, his voice tired. "My beautiful, beautiful lass." He continued slowly. I had never felt less beautiful in my whole life, stinking of fire, death, blood ingrained into the engraving on my armor. The congealing weight of the blood was heavier than any burden I'd ever borne, heavier than Bayard had been at full term, heavier than a full kit in the summer sun… "Know only one thing." He rested the palm of his hand against my charger's shoulder. "You are of the Hand. _When _you need to return to us, we will be there for you. I love you, Clarimonde."

He was so old when he moved away from me, bent. "I love you as well, my father." I answered, and almost feared that he did not hear me, but he stopped. He turned to me, bowed, and nodded.

I never saw him again.


	11. Chapter 11

Arthas was like a man possessed, riding to the coast without pause. He commandeered ships, pointed them resolutely north, and stood at the prow of the flagship until land was well out of sight. "Clair." He stated, and I moved up beside him.

"Arthas." I breathed, staring at the blue on blue world around me. I had never been on a ship before, never seen the ocean or an unending sky like this. "My brother… where do we go?" We had created carnage in eastern Lordaeron; surely we should stay to repair it….

He rested an arm over my shoulders, thoughtfully. "The force behind the Plague awaits us in Northrend. We end it there. We cut off its head before it strikes again."

"A worthy cause." If the instigator of Stratholme's demise waited for us, then indeed, let us go north to meet it. If destroying it would help balm the pain on my soul, then I would see it downed… If destroying it would see Uther stand tall again…. But the hell must be seen through to the finish before we could rebuild what we had destroyed.

"You are beautiful, like a finely wrought blade." Arthas stated, and I gazed at him dubiously. I had never been beautiful, and was less so now than ever. I was still fresh from carrying and birthing Bayard, my harness latched loosely over places it should be tight across. I had wiped off the worst of the blood, but it filled the engravings with a dark maroon, and stained the leather black. It also smelled, or maybe that was just me. "I regret…" He gave me a wry smile, the ghost of my brother Arthas in it. "That I was too drunk to truly remember being with you."

I frowned at the words. Not at the flippancy of the topic, because no one truly spoke of what we had done, each of us sought lighter conversation when we spoke of anything, but because I knew he'd ask me again. And again, I would comply.

He turned away from me, his gaze northward. "It is a crime to ask it of you…again." He told the breeze, the sea, everything but me. "You are Baudoin's. Not mine. I was a fool the first time, and double a fool now… But I need you, Clair."

It was that simple. He did, and I knew it. "I will clean up and be in your stateroom when you are ready for me." My words were calm, but then, I'd been nothing but calm since my mind had grasped what would be asked of me coming into Stratholme. I had participated in the massacre of thousands… going into Arthas's bed was a small sin.

We pushed ever north, and the world grew cold. Lordaeron was hardly balmy, but this… this was a deep cold, that didn't want to shift no matter what. It was cold sleeping next to Arthas, cold on the decks and cold below. I wanted to go home, except I didn't have one of those anymore. Brill…no. From what I'd seen, I could guess what remained there. Stratholme, I'd helped burn to the ground.

I had been gloriously shining at one time, garbed in finery, now I wore clothing that had started out this trip as blankets, pieced together with my incompetent tailoring. And as a final joke, I wore Arthas's signet ring binding my finger, a token from him after the first night. I glanced at it… it was mithril, heavy and moon bright, with the blazon of Lordaeron inset with dark, perfect sapphires. I had the son. I had the ring. Pieces were falling together now, after what she'd seen, Jaina would never let Arthas touch her again. There would be no children, no marriage. After Stratholme, Arthas would never be King of Lordaeron, if there was even a Lordaeron left. It was not fair that I'd seen so much, but was denied seeing that which would have stopped this. I snarled, lashing out and flinging a mug against the wall, narrowly missing Arthas seated at the tiny table across from me.

He raised dark eyes to me, contemplative. "You rage, my dear." He noted calmly, easily. "Why _now_?"

"Why was I shown things that made no difference, but not shown that which would? Why was I shown that Jaina would not be your wife, but never _why_? Why was I shown that Anelas would be your only, but never _why_?" I dropped to my knees, before him, and he was silent. All I heard was the incessant creak of the planks, and the whispering boom of the wind in the sails above me. "I was always shown just enough to get me in deeper, but never enough to avert this…"

He sighed, rising to his feet and crossing to me. "Because, beautiful Clair… none of this is _fair_." He picked me up from the floor, cradling me against his chest. "All the more reason to destroy it while we've got the chance." He carried me to the bed, rested me in it, and kissed me hard. "We'll do our penance later."

There was land after a month, a cold, inhospitable land, but ground nonetheless. We sailed into a sheltered bay, and the wind finally faded. I looked out over the stark beauty of it all, and shuddered. There was a finality to this…that shied away from becoming true prophecy and lurked away from my grasp. Nothing would ever be right again.

We made landfall, and I set foot on land again. It was not a welcome feeling, and I fought the urge to break and flee back for the ship. Only the deep knowledge that it would do me no good, that it was too late for that, kept me still.

"Scout for a campsite." Arthas ordered, summoning his charger. It appeared, and I did the same, half expecting nothing. But my sins were no worse than his… my charger came as well. The Light still graced us. I mounted slowly, riding in the middle of the group while Arthas took the front. What it was he felt, I did not feel it myself. I felt darkness and a widening gulf of nothing surrounding me. It was as if things were coming to an inexorable finish and I was just here to see it happen. A bystander now, no more.

He pulled up just a couple of miles inland, raising his hand and motioning. He did not turn, but I knew he called me. I rode up, following his pointing finger. Arthas had not ridden with full kit, I had…. I pulled my spyglass and sighted down it, doubting what my eyes told me. "They're dwarves." I identified. "Dun Morogh dwarves."

"So they are." He mused, imperiously opening his hand in my direction. I relinquished my spyglass to him, and he studied the camp himself. "Bronzebeard… Muradin Bronzebeard."

"Hell of a place to be lost in." I stated, taking back my glass when it was offered. "No ships…and Muradin is said to be lost…?" We'd discovered the dwarven king's brother… and that was yet another inevitability. Another piece falling in place.

"Yes, he is." Arthas gave me a grin that was almost normal. "I guess he's lost no more…"

We rode on in, surrounded immediately by relieved dwarves. "Laddie!" One of them boomed, and I'd have to bet this was Muradin. He had the family's reputed bronze beard, but all of them looked pretty much alike to me other than that. "We were beginning to think you would never come!"

Arthas managed to look both imposing and dubious all at once. "Come, Muradin? What are you doing here?"

"You've not been sent by my brother to find us?" Muradin asked, his gaze falling on me, then on the men behind us. At the shake of Arthas's head, he shrugged. "We came seeking an artifact, the runeblade Frostmourne. We've had damnable luck here, you may not have come seeking us, but your presence is still appreciated."

"We are seeking a campsite." Arthas hinted slowly, and Muradin grinned in answer. They'd already done most of the work here, no reason to not impose upon them.

"Here is as fine as any, Laddie. Happy to put up yours here, especially since I'm guessing you brought ships?"

"Yes, we have ships."

"Ah! Grand then! This way."

I followed in unintroduced silence, while they talked. Muradin's camp was small, there would be no hiding things from him…and obviously Arthas had little desire to try. When Muradin showed him where he was to sleep, he waved at it to me, and I nodded, breaking out the roll.

"Laddie… who's the lass that follows you?" Muradin demanded warily, and Arthas paused.

"My mistress." He stated finally, and Muradin's bright eyes narrowed, going from me to Arthas.

"Mistress." He echoed in condemnation. "Laddie…." He was at a loss of words for a long moment. "Speak of this with me…alone." He finally settled on, and Arthas glanced down at him.

"Muradin. The woman has as much right to hear what you will say of her as I do. If you mean to say anything, have the courtesy to speak it in front of her."

I turned my back on both of them, working silently to make the bed ready. "'Tis beneath you, Arthas. You were raised better than this…no insult to her, but where is Jaina? And why bring a woman here? This is not a civilized place. 'Tis dangerous and dark here."

"Dangerous and dark here." Arthas repeated, and I shrugged. "Jaina has abandoned me, Muradin. As has Uther. The Hand is no more… It quailed when it was needed the most. All talk and nothing else. Things are ill in Lordaeron."

That was one way to put it. I settled my pack down, and stripped off the ragged blanket tunic that covered my armor. Muradin's eyes widened at the sight, the wreck of once glorious Order plate, dulled and stained. Although it had been oiled, wiped, buffed again, it refused to shine. There was no reason why it should not, steel should still shine after blood was wiped away, but it did not. It was dulled, blued, almost rusting, and the engraving was forever marked by the dark color of old blood. The leather harness had once been doeskin, bright and butter colored. Now it was nearly black.

"She has fallen from the Order." Muradin spat, and Arthas chuckled.

"I just told you, Muradin. The Order is no more. She served it with honor right up until the very end. But it is over."

"Eh." Muradin stared at me, and I stared back. "You have a name, lassie? Calling you…" he was almost foolish enough to say whatever he was considering, but Arthas had his hand on his sword, and he backed away from it. "Need a name for you, I do." He muttered rebelliously.

"My name is Clarimonde." I stated, speaking for the first time. He sighed, then nodded, letting it go.

"Pleasure to meet you, Lassie." He finally granted, holding out his hand. When I gave him mine in return, he was left to stare at the ring, too stunned to do whatever he'd planned. Not that it mattered, his time was fleeting, and I gently removed my hand from his. I curled up and slept, ignoring both of them.

Although it was noon by my estimation, the light was pale and fitful. Muradin was doing his best to ignore my presence, playing sycophant to Arthas. Wasn't it enough that we were about to take care of this problems, release him from the continued attack of these undead spread out before me? Of course, now they threatened us, threatened me, threatened Arthas, and that could not be allowed to continue. It was fine that they'd marooned Muradin here, couldn't happen to a nicer sort.

"Go get them, Clair." Arthas breathed, and I spurred the charger forward deep into the undead camp.

Even now, so long later, I still am not certain exactly what happened. I know the general truth, but at that time, it was simply one minute, I was mounted and fighting, the next…I was neither. Bitter, agonizing pain filled my perceptions, and I'd been here before, I was down. I was dying. This time there was no Uther, no priests… And this wound was worse. Nothing was going to snatch me back from this….

"Clair." When I had been injured before Arthas had been panicked, frantic, now he just sounded…resigned. I came back to my senses somewhat, my head propped against his plated thigh, his gauntleted hand covering mine, over my chest. I tasted blood, thick amounts of it, my own.

"Arthas." If I struggled, I could focus on his face, but things were drawing so far away from me…

"Clarimonde…. My sister. My swornbound. Mother of my heir." He stroked my forehead carefully, the worn leather palms of his gauntlets velvet against my skin. "I should have never brought you here. Had I known…I would have made you stay with Uther…"

Had he known I would have died here, just a couple of days after landfall. I may as well have stayed, he was correct. It was worthless, useless, vacant. I fought the falling darkness, no. I wasn't going to _die_. Not here. Not like this. No no no.

"Laddie." Muradin's voice was deep, regretful, and Arthas's eyes turned poisonous, just a flash.

"Yes, Muradin?" He asked calmly, too calmly.

"The lass fights to stay with you. Release her from her oaths, release her and let her go."

Arthas sighed, deeply, cradling my jaw in his hand. "Clarimonde, my sister." He breathed slowly, so softly only I could hear him. "You should have been my queen; you would have made a fine one. But Muradin is right. Let go. I release you…."

They were the last words I heard while I lived.


	12. Chapter 12

I woke, cold. Not a regular cold, not even the cold of Northrend, but a soaking, burning, agonizing cold. A dying sort of cold. I could feel a breeze, and if it were possible, it was even colder. The hands upon me were cold, and all I felt was a numbing deadness. I was naked, exposed, moved and touched by so many hands… I wanted to scream, to fight, but I could not. "I believe we have her." A voice, so dark, so cold, so…uncaring, spoke. The space I was in must be huge to swallow his words like that, and I could hear screaming beyond. Howling. The gibbering of the mindless undead at Hearthglen, all around me. "Finally. She did not come easily."

"Clarimonde. Welcome back." Arthas's voice and my eyes startled open. I was in a great cavern, green and shimmering… so much…. Ice. "Here." He closed my fingers around a hilt, not the sword I had wielded in the Order… I could feel a sluggish presence in this one that perked up when my hand was closed.

"Arthas…you look…." My very thoughts were disjointed and incoherent… "Terrible." He did, as well. I had never seen him look…so bad. His hair, once amber gold, was fine and white. His eyes truly glowed now, not just from the power of his soul, but from simple power. His skin had paled, grayed. He considered my words, and grinned, a wicked, yet compelling smile.

"Shush, little one. Listen to it." He rested my other hand, open, upon the blade's foible, "It awakens as you do."

_Clarimonde, my hand. My companion. My mistress. _

It thought. Only vastly enchanted blades thought…. Knew… were aware of themselves and those around them… and most of those were weapons of darkness.

"What is its name, Clair?"

"Dormarth." Where that came from, I was not certain, but it was so. It was mine, I was its. "Arthas, what have you done?" I had been dead. I….still was, yanked back from…

"Noooo… Clair. Do not go back there." He ground the words out, and I heard Uther call my name from very far away.

"But Uther calls me." I turned my head to the side, away from Arthas, and _something _moved beside me, something large, dark, and insect like… That which had brought me back from the dead. I was an abomination… my heart was stilled in my chest.

"Uther is dead, Clair."

"So am I." I had died leaning against his leg, on the cold ground above the bay. This wasn't like the time that Uther had pulled me back from death. Then I had lived again, flush with health and fertility. Now, I simply did not live. "Where am I?"

"You are at the top of Northrend, Clair. My citadel." He pulled to sit me upright. I was nude, but few around me were alive and aware enough to notice, and those didn't seem to care. _Arthas would rule, but never be King of Lordaeron…_ "You are reborn. I brought you back…it was not easy. You had been dead a long time. Well and truly dead."

And Uther still was…well and truly dead. I felt his loss like a sudden stabbing pain. Words failed me, I merely sat there and trembled, my fingers closed around a sword that pondered and considered. "Too much, too soon." Arthas noted, motioning into the darkness. Another of the insect spider things moved from the shadows, and carefully placed a pile of fabric beside me. "Dress, Clarimonde. You will feel better then. We will eat. And things will be just fine."

Somehow, I doubted that. Uther's death made things not fine. The weight of others who had been there, where I'd come from, so many of the Order, dead. The only good thing was that I could not recall Baudoin's presence there. Uther, yes. Gavinrad, yes. So many. But not Baudoin. Not Tirion, or Turalyon. Some had escaped the….purge. What had happened? What had finally brought down _Uther_? I stood doll like as I was dressed in a gown of impossible finery, black embroidered with gems and precious metals…. Never had I even dreamed of such a thing…

"_Listen to me. Stay still. Stay calm." _The blade had a higher pitched _voice _than most who told me to stay calm, but it was compelling anyway. "_Uther is dead by Arthas's hand. Arthas has destroyed him, destroyed the Order, destroyed his father, destroyed Lordaeron. If we are not careful, he will destroy us as well. He has struggled to bring you back from the dead, you are valuable to him. If he doubts, we will cease to be valuable. Our time comes later. Now we must simply survive this." _

The idea was inconceivable. Certainly, Arthas and Uther had not seen eye to eye in regards to Stratholme, but Uther's words to me afterwards let me believe he'd thought we could be absolved. But to _kill _Uther… I couldn't grasp that.

_"Arthas has changed, my mistress. He is no longer the man you called brother or lover. That man has died in the purge of the Order as truly as Uther has."_

I nodded, closing my fingers around the hilt of the runeblade, and following Arthas into the depths of the citadel. _"So. What am I?" _

_"I am…uncertain." _I didn't like the lack of information contained within it. _"Unlike the others of Arthas's knights, you were well and truly dead. He used the oaths you gave him, the life you gave him, to pull you back. You are not slowly becoming undead; you are slowly becoming less dead. An interesting question, but not I think one you are particularly interested in. Arthas invested a great deal of power to raise you. We shall see." _

_ "Arthas is not dead." _

_ "No, not yet. He yet lives. You do not." _ It seemed completely at ease with that concept; I wish I could take it half as well. _"Feed. Close your mind to it. You've closed your mind to worse." _

I didn't like that. There were four dwarves in the small cavern that Arthas moved to, and he gestured at them. I knew, comprehended all too well. But, at least, I killed them quickly, and they sated me to unconsciousness.

I slept a great deal during the first days of my reawakening, at the foot of Arthas's bed, like a trusted hound. I dreamed of Uther, who said things which calmed me in my sleep, but that I could not recall when I awoke. The blade, Dormarth, was correct. Arthas was surrounded by members of the Order who had followed him to the top of the World, and who were, little by little, giving up their life in his service. My life had been snatched away, never given away. But when I had slept myself out, and fed several more times, Arthas took me to the top of the citadel, out into the open air of Northrend. "Summon your steed." He ordered, and I paused. Mine would never come to me again, snuffed out the moment I had ceased to live. The charger which had borne me out of Brill, to Hearthglen, and back, was gone. Arthas's knights rode animated horned equine skeletons, and I was afraid to call one. If I just kept on as if things were normal, they might return to that….

_"Call it. He will persist until you do." _

I did…and there was silence. For a moment, I was spared, and then I heard the thrum of hooves pounding against the icy ground. A horse was coming on fast, and he burst into view, his tail fanning like a banner behind him. Unlike the dreadsteeds of the others, he was bound in flesh…a great deal of it, covered in a shining ebon coat. He bore the horns of his skeletal brethren, but the rest of him was all horse. He had a torrent of mane and tail, and hairy feathers fell over his great hooves. He galloped around me in an increasingly tight spiral, finally hopping to a halt before me, and announced his arrival with a gusty snort.

"Fascinating." Arthas murmured. "Not at all what I was expecting. Summon the rest."

"What rest?" I asked slowly, and he chuckled.

"Your armor. His barding. It comes the same way he does. You just have to want it."

I closed my eyes again, and felt the weight of armor, a shield. "Again. Very fascinating." Arthas drawled. "Now you are ready to take your place in my court." He moved away, leaving me on the top of the world, and I opened my eyes. I wore black plate, piped in blue, and the horse was barded the same. The shield was liquid dark, but I could almost see the blazon of Lordaeron if I peered at it hard enough.

Conflict rose on the wind, and I climbed to the top of the glacier, staring towards the ocean. Someone came. I could sense them, a delicate change in the flow of life around me. People…resolute….

"What is it, Clair?" Arthas asked, appearing behind me. He felt his followers. He felt the dead, and dying, odd for one who still lived, breathed, slept and ate. I felt the living…

"Someone comes." The wind was picking up…there would be snow later. "Many someones come."

He paused, staring in the same general direction I gazed in. "Go." He ordered, turning away. "See what comes."

I nodded, hopping easily down along the ice, summoning my steed as I did so. He awaited me at the bottom of the treacherous path, barded and tacked this time. I mounted, and headed for the disturbance, halting on a bluff overlooking the gray, agitated waves. Ships… I narrowed my eyes. I had no need for a spyglass anymore; focusing my attention brought the same clarity. They were ships, yes. I recognized their shipwright's work…. Ships from the yard at Kul'Tiras. Ships from Jaina's country, built by her people. I gave the steed his head, riding along the coast in the same direction they were traveling in. The horse was in a fair, fine mood, skipping along in a flurry of flying changes of leads and snorts, beautiful and he knew it.

An icy dune gave me another good look, and I frowned. Definitely from Kul'Tiras, heavily beamed and sturdy, the ships were the same as the ones we'd come to Northrend on. Their sails were white, and upon that, a corruption of Lordaeron's blazon, the "L" blood red instead of blue.

_"Who?" _Arthas asked in my mind.

"I do not know, my prince." I told the breeze and the steed's wavering ears. "The ships are from Kul'Tiras. They bear Lordaeron's blazon, but it's in red."

"_Hmmm. I do not know. Tell me when you do._"

"Yes, my prince." I agreed easily enough, shadowing the ships. They were not coming to the Bay, but made landfall far away, on the coast west of it. Once anchored, they disgorged troops, garbed in the unfamiliar red and white, each bearing the same odd almost Lordaeron tabard. And they had _paladins _amongst them, some of them familiar. Priests as well, and I recognized several. They _had _been my friends, my companions, my support… but now they felt empty and driven. They had let events break them as surely as those who clung to Arthas were allowing things to break them. Their resolve and fear had borne a corruption as surely as any here. These, I could kill, and feed upon.

_"They are twisted remnants of the Church and the Hand. Upon our shores. They should die now..." _I let the phrase fade in my head, hungry and plaintive. I hungered, the blade hungered. And that hunger was easy to hide behind. That got Arthas's full attention, and he locked his mind on mine. I let him nudge in, and look through my eyes.

_"You are strong and fine, Clair. But that is too much for you to take alone. Return, and stand ready to ride with my forces. You will feed upon them, I promise. Your hunger, your blade's hunger, will be slaked." _

I returned to the Citadel, and the Frozen Throne, saluting as I moved up behind him. "Clarimonde brings me word that we have interlopers." Arthas stated, glancing over the five who stood before him. Four looked interested; the fifth sent me a vicious stare, and I gazed blandly back at him. Bonner, one time young paladin of the Order, now wished to be first among Arthas's knights, a position I held without request or attempt. He insinuated that I held it by grace of having once been _in _Arthas's bed, instead of at its foot. That might be correct, but I cared not. _I _had been the one to sense the trespassers…

"I have seen nothing, your majesty." Bonner stressed the honorific, while I slid by referring to Arthas as my prince.

"I realize _you _have seen nothing." Arthas agreed slowly, and I gave Bonner a barely triumphant smile. "Nevertheless, they are here. It is time to see just what you are capable of…" He grinned, and there was nothing of the man I remembered in that teeth baring grimace. The blade was correct, _my _Arthas, the golden haired, feline youth of my past was gone, dead. He glanced back at me, almost as if he'd heard the thought, and I let hunger blot it away, riding the swords' edge of famishment. "I know, Clair. You are hungry, and I will release you against these….violators of our lands, in due time. But I need you here, now."

I didn't need to hide the dismay at those words. Hiding behind my hunger paid it attention, attention caused it to rise. "My prince?"

"I would know who, what they are first. They are an unknown, and I do not like unknowns. We will take prisoners, question them. And you are the one who sees through lies and half truths. You will be my interrogator, and when you have my answers…you will feed upon them, and their brethren. I will release you and let you cry havoc. I swear."

I was pacing hungry before they brought me anything at all to _question_, but they finally managed to bring me three, two men and a woman, each dressed still in the mockery of the faithful of Lordaeron's garb.

I stepped from the shadows of the room, and one of the men took an involuntary step backward. The woman hissed, and the larger of the men stood stoic. I had not bothered to wonder how I appeared since dying, but obviously something had changed.

"Beast of foulness!" The woman declared, triumphantly, and I regarded her. It was a foolish statement, at best. I recognized none of them, which was both good, and bad. Recognition would have given me something to work with, but it also went both ways.

"Your expedition trespasses upon our shores." I stated tranquilly, and the smaller man took yet another step back, away from me.

"We have come to cleanse these lands!" The woman spat, and shifted. She was obviously a gesticulator, used to grand gestures and points. Having her hands bound as they were cut down on her ability to self aggrandize. It also hindered her ability to cast. "Of those things that lurk in the shadows…like you!"

"I recognize many of the Silver Hand amongst your numbers, and an even greater number of the clergy. Why do these wear a mockery of Lordaeron's blazon?"

"The mockery is yours! Your very existence is a mockery of all that is whole and true…." She sputtered to silence when I placed a fingertip over her mouth.

"I get the point. I am a dark thing, which lurks in the shadows." This close to a target, I could feel the blade vibrating in its sheath at my side, hungering. "Evil. I comprehend you completely." I bent down and kissed her on her nose, and then realized I was taller than she was. I was taller than the cowed man, and as tall as their larger, silent companion. "Now. We've established just how abominable _I _am. Who are you?"

The silent one raised dark brown eyes to regard me. "First." He stated in a deep voice, "Who are you, that serves the Lich King?"

"I am Clarimonde de Nemesio, once of the Silver Hand." I let him have it. Sometimes information came from giving it.

"Swornbound of Arthas Menethil." His eyes were sad, level. "Doomed to fall when he did. I am very sorry for you, lady. His weakness brought you down, and we will be honored to remove this taint from you. We are the Scarlet Crusade; our sworn duty is to turn back the darkness of the Scourge, the plague, and bring Lordaeron back from her duress. Your service, your sacrifice, will be remembered… your name will be called from the altar when you are released from this."

"What….is that?" The younger male finally stammered, and the older one glanced at him.

"I am…not certain. I know what she was, before. Now…"

_"What are they babbling about?" _I asked, knowing the blade was wide awake and focused.

_"You are glorious, my hand, my mistress. They expected undead…such as those felled by the plague. Rotting. Shambling. Easy to spit upon and rise above. There was so much damage to your body in the months you laid dead, that Arthas was forced to recreate you. His memory combined with his desires made a potent mixture. The rest you completed when you rose, as your soul melded and repaired it." _

"I am Clarimonde. Risen knight of the Lich King, brought from my death to serve at his side again. And Northrend is his." And it better stay that way…if Northrend fell, then I truly had nowhere to go.

"Northrend must be cleansed. It is a breeding place of the Scourge, and the darkness. Arthas must be destroyed, and all who serve him." The older man stared at me, and I knew he included me in that. "Those who once served the Light are first to be released."

I nodded, raising my brows. Of course we were, and I comprehended his words. They called to the paladin I had once been. To Uther's daughter. But there was something rotten here…. I pulled my short blade, a gift from Uther, and pricked my finger, drawing my own black blood. I dabbed the dot over the bridge of his nose, and he struggled to get away from me, falling backwards until the ice wall stopped his flight.

"I am the daughter of Uther Lightbringer, by raising, if not by blood." I stated coldly. "Of the Hand. Swornbound to Arthas. And that tells me you are in the middle of something gone horribly wrong…" I closed my eyes, contemplating. There was death on their souls, as deeply etched as into my own. The blood of innocents stained their hands as red as their tabards. They were purging, cleaning the slate… my lands, most of Lordaeron. _Baudoin _had turned from them, had fled… They had massacred those I had left at Brill, those immune, still struggling to repair the devastation.

The blade keened, its cry audible. I drew it in a sweeping motion, driving it to its quillions deep in the man's chest. It fed from him; I fed from it, wrenching it free when it was done with him. The others followed, and I took the steps two at a time to return to Arthas. He watched me through steady, glowing emerald eyes. "You rage, my dear." He repeated a phrase from a lifetime ago. "Yes, I heard you. They have destroyed what little you left behind."

"_Let me have them." _I ground the words out, and he nodded, making the barest motion of his fingers.

"Go. Feed. Destroy them all."

And I did. They put up a valiant and concerted fight, making it all of the way to the foot of the glacier, mockingly close to the Citadel itself. I hounded them, harried them, and fed until I could feed no more. And when that occurred, I merely killed them, learning the gifts of my death as I did so. When their advance was halted, I back tracked them to the ocean, and destroyed the ships they had come in, leaving them breached and tumbled in the shallow waters, their sails billowing and flapping uselessly. When the exhilaration drained from me, I was left sated and sleepy, and turned the steed, not north, towards the citadel which crowned the world, but east… where we had made landfall.

_"Clair?" _Arthas queried softly in my head. _"Where do you go?" _

"I go to sleep, my prince." And that direction was the right place to do it in.

_"Ah. I see." _And by his tone, I knew he did. _"Sleep well, my treasure." _

I found it just north of Muradin's doomed encampment, a low building of dwarven crafting, half buried into the sere grasses of the bay. I climbed down the shallow steps into my own tomb, breached when Arthas came to reclaim me. There was a ledge carved into the stone wall, with my original kit resting within, and the stone that had closed it rested on its end against the other wall. I tilted my head to read the inscription of my own stone, _Clarimonde de Nemesio, Knight of the Silver Hand. _So simple. I only nodded, pushing my belongings to the floor and snuggling into my niche. I slept, far from Arthas, back with those who only came to me when I slept.

I suppose it should have been obvious we would not be left alone, that the chaos in Lordaeron would calm… after those that would die, did. And that Arthas could not be forgiven, forgotten… or that he wouldn't let himself be. I could feel the intrusions on this land… a brilliant point of power, undeniable, blotting out so many smaller ripples.

I woke when it appeared, returning to Arthas's side immediately. "What…is _that_?" I demanded, and he glanced sideways at me.

"That is Dalaran." He growled. "And many others."

He was enraged, and I silenced, moving away from him as quickly as I could without attracting attention. Dalaran? Here? The last I had known, it had been in Lordaeron, near Hillsbrad. It was an entire city… how could it be here?

I moved high in the glacier, well above Arthas and his throne, above the nerubians moving on their tasks, into the place that was just the land, the sky, and the wind. Here was silence, soothing and centering… Utterly alone.

"_Lass_." Some part of me had known he would come, that was why I had sought this distance.

"Yes, Uther?" I asked, glancing towards him. He was not truly there, that I understood. He was as dead as he'd been since Lordaeron had fallen at Arthas's hands. But his eyes loved me still, and I mourned him more than I mourned any other lost in this.

"_You have run out of time, lass_." He stated, his eyes leaving me and casting over the desolate beauty of my perch. "_Tell me now; are you Clarimonde, of the Hand, or the Lich King's captain_?"

I sighed, he was right. If the Order was landing in support of Dalaran, and the Kirin Tor mages, I would have to choose. But Uther was not content with just that, he turned again. "Tell me now, Clarimonde, do you go with Baudoin, and your sons, or do you stand with Arthas? Baudoin lands with the Order, and he comes for _you_, one way or the other."

I closed my eyes. Baudoin, my sons, the Order. So much, standing against an Arthas I no longer recognized. "_If _I desert Arthas, where do I go?"

"_The Order is alerted to your presence and possible defection. We spoke of this when you slept, lass. You will be removed to Dalaran immediately, and sent through back to Azeroth… Stormwind, under the custody of the Order_."

"I don't remember what happens when I sleep." I stated mildly, and he nodded. Custody… there was a term I did not like the sound of, but the alternatives… Bringing a blade against Baudoin, and others I knew. Arthas had released me from my oaths… but the Order had not. Baudoin had not. "Uther, I am so sorry…" I understood things much too late. I had loved Arthas, true. But I had loved Uther so much more… Perhaps had I not followed Arthas here, I could have stopped him from starting the purge…

"_Never, lass. Just do this, stand as my daughter again. You could not have saved me. You could not have saved Arthas_."

I sighed, staring at the empty world around me. I was dead and I fooled no one, not even myself. The blade at my side remained silent; I contemplated the destruction of it as surely as my own…

_"I do not wish to end." _It finally admitted. _"But I am you, and you are me. To be drawn and sunk into those you cherish, no. I cannot feed like that, and you would hate me for it." _

I nodded, decision made. I would die…again…as I had lived… Uther's daughter, Knight of the Hand.

My steed met me at the bottom of the glacier, and I mounted him, riding to disappear into the icy fog rising where the glacier gave way into ground. I rode for the Order's encampment, steeling my nerves. Enough. It was over…. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost ran down the first sentry. It was difficult to guess who was more surprised from the sudden meeting, me, or him. Even my steed was startled, snorting and shifting back onto his hocks, lowering his chamfron armored head and shaking his horns threateningly at the young man.

"Halt!" He yelled, a tad bit late. "Identify yourself!"

"I am Clarimonde de Nemesio. I believe that the Highlord is expecting me?" That was definitely the idea I had gotten from Uther's words. If not expecting, then hoping…. Was Baudoin the new Master?

"I am, indeed… Clarimonde." A voice came from the thickening fog, familiar. No, not Baudoin… Tirion, contemporary in age and experience to Uther, one of the primaries of the Order. Arthas had failed to purge this one… who else had he failed to destroy? "Dismount the horse, slowly…." I did so, stepping away from the increasingly anxious dreadcharger. "Dismiss him." Tirion's voice was completely, totally calm.

I did so, and he vanished into the nether, one closer step to my capitulation…. "Good. Now the blade… leave it in its scabbard, and unbuckle it from the frog…. Hold it in both hands, and bring it to me."

I moved to him, slowly. He looked old, but he felt…focused, alive. Renewed. I nodded, going to a knee and offering him the runeblade, closing my eyes in pain when he accepted it.

_"Clarimonde!" _Arthas screamed my name when it left my grip, the blade he had forged and imbued to see me through this as his. _"What..." _

Tirion nodded, grabbing me by my upper arm, yanking me to my feet. "And we just ran out of time…" he hissed, hurrying me along beside him. "Through the portal…" he snarled, bodily pushing me onto the rune carved into the bare stone. I was in Northrend, under Arthas's full focus one second, and gone the next… into blessed silence. It was warm, no… _Balmy_, warmer than it had been in years. I was surrounded by life, growing, verdant, fecund…. It was almost smothering. I could sense the ocean outside, the scream of gulls and the crash of water. I could hear the sounds of people in the depths beneath me, not the furtive scuttle of the nerubians or the gibbering of the undead which sounded in the depths of Icecrown.

"Clarimonde. So you are what the Order sees fit to send me in such a hurry."

_Jaina_. I froze in place, my features hidden in the engulfing safety of my cowl. "Lady Jaina." I managed. She was turned away from me, focused on the runeblade, _my _runeblade, resting on the table before her.

"We never had the opportunity to speak, Clarimonde." She turned away from Dormarth, who rested silently, willing itself smaller. "I've thought often since Stratholme that perhaps we should have known each other a little better… You've changed."

"So have you." She seemed smaller, but I understood that was because I had grown. She was probably the same height as I remembered her being a lifetime ago, but she was older, calmer, vastly more mature. And now I could sense the power coiling within her, deep and rich.

"At least I still live."

I shrugged, unwilling to play this game. There was a dizzying drop beneath me, and several precipitous ramps and stairs spanning the void…. A mage tower. I was hedged in by so many wards, so many runes… I turned away from her, moving to a narrow window and staring out. This was no place I knew, a bustling seaport… Was this Boralus, capital of Kul'Tiras? "I died honestly." It seemed an inane answer.

"Did you?" she demanded, the inane answer seeming to be more important to her than it was to me. "And how _did _you die? When? Where?"

"I died two days after we made landfall on Northrend. Arthas and Muradin went to clean out some undead… which had been preying on Muradin's people. I took a spear. I died." That was pretty much it…not much more to know.

She moved silently, from slant of sunlight, to shadow, and back again. "You claim to have died untouched by the Lich King, when Arthas was still whole? Dead by uncorrupted conflict?"

"Arthas was still a man then, yes. Still…my swornbound. I still loved him then. I died in a natural manner, not of my will."

She gazed at me for a long moment, motioning with a hand and chanting a few burbling words. A point of light coalesced in front of my nose; flittered around me a couple of times, each time, its tail became thicker, more visible. "You bear oaths…to the Order." She sounded almost surprised. "And to a man who yet lives. But none to Arthas…"

"Muradin told Arthas to release me so I would die faster. He did so."

"And you are here now, why?" She moved closer, studying me as she came.

"I have surrendered to the Order. I will not bear arms against my brethren…" she reached up and pushed the cowl back, raising a sudden quirky brow when the oddly heavy sunlight fell across my face.

"How generous. You will not feed on the Order. An interesting piece of work, that. Whose crafting is it?" She motioned at the quiescent runeblade. "And does the sunlight bother you?"

"I will not feed upon the Order." I assumed that this surrender was tantamount to execution by starvation, and at the idea, the blade cried. She snapped her head around to study it, her eyes narrowing and the line between her honey brows deepening. "And the blade, it is the work of the Lich King, of course. Would I carry… _less_? And no… the light does not bother me. Should it?" The last was a half truth. It was much brighter than I had seen for years, unpleasantly so, but nothing about that felt particularly wrong.

"Perhaps, if you were not as you claimed. So…tell me of Arthas, now." She moved past me, sitting at a finely crafted desk pushed up against the wall.

"There is no Arthas, now. That man is dead, and I mourn his loss to us." There was only the Lich King now. "Where am I? Kul'Tiras? I do not recognize it."

"No, this is not Kul'Tiras." She stated…and filled nothing into the heavy pause I let grow after it. She was just full of answers.

"Arthas is gone. Arthas is dead." I returned to her conversation, since she refused to be drawn to mine. "Jaina. He is lost…to us. Gone. Destroyed."

"I had so many questions once. You loved Arthas, it was plain to see… I guess it is foolish to ask them now, but I always got the sense that something was going on. That Arthas hid things, and hid them badly."

I chuckled, shaking my head. She'd opened the door, may as well swing it open all the way. "Jaina, many people hid things from you." She raised her head, her eyes calmer than I expected. There was relief there, clean blood from a tainted wound. Someone was finally going there. Someone alive enough to go, who would know. "Arthas was to marry _you_, had you known… I do not know."

"Known what, Clarimonde? That he was with you… We decided that it would be best if we stopped it, until we were certain. Until we could be together… you were there when I wasn't… You were at Stratholme, and I know he did not forgive me for not…." She shook her head convulsively, her eyes tortured. "I could not…"

"Known that Arthas did not fall childless." I leaned against the stone wall, studying the rugs on the plank floor. "The King, Uther, all moved quickly to make certain you did not know." Her face was very still, she was stunned into silence. "Terenas did not want to jeopardize your relationship, while I was a noble's daughter, you were Daelin's daughter, and brought Kul'Tiras with you. I was good enough to cause trouble, well born enough to be a threat. Then I compounded it by bearing a son, _Arthas's _son. That couldn't happen."

"I can't see Uther keeping that a secret…."

"Certainly he would. If it got out, you would be hurt. I would be hurt. You would be the woman scorned and I would be the whore who did it. We are not men, Jaina. We are held to different standards…and we were spoiled where we were… the Violet Citadel for you, the Lodge of the Order for me. The truth is lost in situations like that."

"And what was the truth?"

"The truth…" I sighed. "That Arthas missed you greatly. That he was lonely. That there was a fine festival and a good amount of alcohol and that things happened. The mistake of youths, Jaina. By then, I had decided on another, and it was an accident. I do not regret it… I would find it worse to know that Arthas is gone from me, without what he gave me. I hope that you loved him enough to feel the same."

She glanced at me over her shoulder, pensive and thoughtful. "Arthas was worth loving then. I make no excuses for it, and neither, I guess, do you."

"No excuses." I agreed, studying my gauntleted hands, and the fall of golden light across them. "Where am I, Jaina? Why do I not know this place? Is it Boralus?"

"No. It's Theramore." She finally answered. "Across the ocean, many leagues from any point that you should know…" She and I felt the portal stone activate again, and she turned to it. "Tirion." She identified quickly when I moved away from it, placing as much fighting space between it and myself as the wards would allow, and as close to my blade as possible. I would rather fight in the open, the dizzying height and spider web of ramps that mages seemed to favor was low on my list of favored terrain, but this was what was left to me.

It was indeed Tirion, appearing where I had earlier. He strode off of the rune point, his eyes locked on me. "My apologies, Lady Proudmoore." He stated. "You seemed to best place to send her when Arthas realized she was held. She's too valuable to let him recover her…."

I folded my arms over my chest, fighting to leave my combat stance, and leaned against the stone wall next to me. Valuable. That sounded dire. The Scarlet Crusaders brought to me to question had been valuable as well… until they'd been dead. I said nothing in response, and Jaina merely returned her attention to my blade. "You have disarmed her." She noted the obvious, and Tirion raised a brow.

"Of course." He said, taking a contentious position close to her, the perfect point to intercept me if I attacked her. "She has served Arthas for years." I glanced at her for her response, he was correct and his caution was admirable.

"You call her valuable. How so?"

"She knows the layout of the Lich King's citadel. His strengths. The disposition of his followers… even assuming he changes things because we have her, he cannot change much…."

"So you mean to use her for intelligence… And then what?"

"That remains to be seen." He glanced in my direction, obviously trying to gain my measure. I had never met Tirion before; he had run his own Lodge far from Uther's at Stratholme. I knew him about as well as any of the primaries, by name, by face, and by reputation. "What do you know of her, Lady Proudmoore? Uther's records were destroyed…" His gaze, still on me, sharpened… "During the destruction of Stratholme. As an initiate from Alonsus Chapel, the Hand now has little information on her, other than she was dear to Uther."

"Clair is…" Jaina's voice was calm, smooth, steady. "The only child of one of the noble lines of Lordaeron, the DeNemesio family. Her father brought her to the Hand to raise after he got into some troubles that Arthas did not see fit to enumerate, but those ended the man in jail…" she glanced at me, and I raised a brow.

"He was embezzling from the Crown's coffers." I filled in the blank, and she nodded slowly.

"She was Uther's ward, raised alongside Arthas. A better than adequate paladin was always the description I heard, except from Arthas, who named her as an exemplary example of the breed. She was very bright; the Kirin Tor had their eyes on her, especially after she proved to have some prophetic abilities, but by then, she'd already sworn to the Hand. Both Uther and Arthas pushed her to become Arthas's swornbound, as I heard, she was hesitant. Her training was sporadic, she spent a lot of time laid up, first from a bad riding accident, and then from childbirth. There were rumors…" she swallowed, "That her first born was Arthas's."

That was news to me, obviously Uther had not squashed that one nearly as well as he'd hoped, but as I'd warned Terenas, Anelas had been the spitting image of his father. No one with eyes would miss it. And the Lodge did not seek foolish men… men who couldn't put two and two together. Someone talked too freely, however, if that rumor had found its way to Jaina's ears. Of course, she was with the Kirin Tor, and if they caught the rumor…

Tirion coughed, his eyes flickering between me and Jaina. "And?" he demanded of me, and I shrugged.

"As I have told Jaina, it was so. I make no excuses now. He…" I tasted the strings of bonds on me, yes, Anelas still lived… "Is Arthas's son. Sired and born before everything fell apart."

"You claim to have borne the Menethil heir." Tirion grated out, "In front of Lady Proudmoore. In front of _me_?"

"The truth is often onerous." I quoted Uther, and Tirion stared at me. "Arthas accepted the child. Even Terenas acknowledged it. There were documents…" One, with Terenas, probably destroyed when Lordaeron City had fallen. One, with Uther, and as Tirion had just noted, Uther's records had not survived the razing of Stratholme, and one… resting within my pack…leaning against the wall beside Jaina.

"Let me guess." Tirion chuckled cynically, and I stared at him. "Arthas had them…. And they're lost with him?"

Jaina looked between us, obviously less than impressed with this. She believed me, and didn't need this. I _knew _and didn't need this. But Tirion was the Highlord of the Order now, and held me in custody… "There were _three _copies. No one was foolish to have only one, Lord Tirion. And no, Arthas had none of them. Terenas had one, in the Vaults of Lordaeron City. I assume those are lost…." He shrugged, uncertain…so the Order did not know the status of the Capital's vaults. "Uther had one, yes, in the Order's archives… and you tell me those are certainly lost." He folded his arms over his chest, shadowing my stance, and nodded. "And _I _was given a copy."

"And you lost yours where?"

"Who says I've lost mine? It's in there…." I pointed at the pack, and Jaina studied the pack, making a slow motion with her hand. She shrugged after it, grasping the pack by its worn straps and lifting it to the table. She began sorting the contents, the vast majority of them the remains of my original kit… spyglass, fire kit, knife, until she uncovered my map case. She opened it, removing its contents under Tirion's wary stare, her eyes on the upper most document. It wasn't the packet from Terenas, and for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was or why it should catch her attention so completely. She glanced at the next, and the one after it… "By the Light." She breathed, and Tirion stared at her. "She's carrying the original dispatches warning of the plague. The Kirin Tor archivists would give their souls for these…"

He sighed, his eyes darkening. "Clarimonde DeNemesio brought the first coherent warnings to the Hand, the first to let us know that it was more than it appeared to be. We received them at the Lordaeron lodge, but even with them, could not muster an effective response. As their author, she would carry a copy until she could file them at Stratholme…" And there had been no chance for that to happen.

"Yes, but these should be the documents she's referring to…" she pulled the packet, still bound with blue and white ribbons, out from the collection of documents and maps I'd been carrying so long ago. She opened them, scanning them quickly. "They name Anelas Menethil as the son of Arthas Menethil, as acknowledged by him and his father. If Arthas dies without a legitimate heir, then he is to be acknowledged as the heir to the throne… of Lordaeron."

He took the documents from her, reading them much slower than she had. "I do not foresee Arthas producing a legitimate heir _now_." He said with the slightest shadow of a smile. "And these are true documents of the King?"

She waved a hand over it, and nodded. "No forgery. Terenas wrote these, Arthas, Uther, both signed them. If there was only a Lordaeron to give the child… Where is he now, Clair?"

"I do not know." And I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. Leave Baudoin to keep doing his job… "All I am certain of is that both my sons yet live. The last I saw of Anelas was when I brought him to Lordaeron when Brill began sickening. When I left the dispatches…" Those dispatches she had returned to, obviously they were so much more interesting to her than the King's documents. Lordaeron City had fallen, its vaults and libraries lost. The main Lodge of the Hand, at Stratholme burned, possibly by my own hand… now, the major depository of knowledge was held by the Kirin Tor mages. To me, the dispatches were merely that, letters I'd written which had failed to do their job. But I could see where they might have value now.

"What do you know of their dispersal… these documents? Who knew what, when?"

For the first time, I allowed myself to look back at the events leading up to the tragedy instead of grinding away at the tragedy itself. I let myself encompass the horrifying speed and severity of the Scourge plague. Brill had been fine when Arthas and Gavinrad had passed through the morning before. There had been nothing amiss to alert either of them. "Uther had them within a day of the first illness at Brill." I stated. My mother had died in the first eight hours of the plague. "The Hand at Stratholme was alerted and moving when I arrived there the morning after the first illness. So at that point… Stratholme and Lordaeron had both received warnings."

Tirion nodded slowly. As the Master responsible for Lordaeron, he would have received them before Uther had… Baudoin would have reported to him immediately.

"Brill sickened during the day. That night, my mother died. I rode from Brill to Lordaeron at dawn, reached it in the early evening, and wrote the dispatches. Then I returned to Brill. It had fallen by then, so I rode to the Tower and ported to Stratholme… but they'd already received the dispatches hours earlier…."

"Ironfist had a copy ported to Uther at the same time I received word." Tirion stated, and my stomach plunged. Ironfist, the same label that my prophecies gave Baudoin, the first of the Hand to hold the dispatches when I left Lordaeron. "Both of the major lodges knew then… by your account, a day later."

"Yes." They'd done little good, as I understood it, but I'd done my job the best I knew how. If I'd known then what I knew now… I would have moved from Brill the moment my mother had sickened, straight to the portal and Uther…. And even now, I had no idea what I could have done to change things. Could the extra day have made a difference? Would Lordaeron have stood had I been that swift to respond? Would Arthas have remained in the Light? Would Uther, Gavinrad…the Hand… have survived?

"Clarimonde." Tirion breathed, and I turned my eyes to him. "We have been over this many a time. We do not believe we could have turned the plague even if we had known of it earlier. Once Kel'thuzad had planted it, it was over."

"Hmmm." The room had once been warm, but I felt chilled and turned away from him. All that panic, all that scurrying…had been for naught. I could have stayed at Brill, secure in my immunity…

"You state your sons yet live." He moved to a window beside me, surveying the seaport. "Does their survival not make it worthwhile? You did your best as a member of the Hand, Clarimonde. Our only question now is can you be brought back into the Light after all of this? It is Uther's wish that we try… He does not rest, and I believe that you are part of the reason why… Jaina?"

"I will not help you destroy her. If you truly mean to try, Tirion, then you have my aid. If you do not, then go elsewhere with this. The Light burned brightly within her… she fell because of that."

"I am honor bound to try and bring her back to us." He retorted, and she nodded, turning to me.

"Then take up the blade, Clarimonde, and come with me." She motioned at the runeblade, already moving towards the first ramp down. I scooped the blade up before Tirion could complain, bounding after her. She took me out of the tower, moving quickly through the streets to the keep overlooking the town and wharves. Tirion trailed, glowering at any who tried approaching her, and together, they got me into a sleeping chamber.

"Fine. Clarimonde." She stated, while I regarded the room. It was so mundane, so blessedly ordinary after years in Icecrown. Sunlight poured from the window, bright and yellow, not the wan, halfhearted light I'd become accustomed to at the top of the world. There was a breeze, warm and heavy. "Off with the conjured gear." She continued and I stared at her in puzzled disbelief. She wasn't truly suggesting what I thought she was….

"Off. With the conjured gear." She repeated stubbornly, opening the interior door into a small bathing room, the tub already filled with steaming water. "First…you stink, deplorably so. Secondly, we need to ground you back in reality. Real clothes, not this exercise of your will. Thirdly, I need to see what's been done to you, to see what might need to be made right. Who raised you, or do you know?"

"Arthas, working in conjunction with several nerubian necromancers."

She wrinkled her nose at that, but still waved insistently at me. I glanced at Tirion and she chuckled. "Shy? You're no innocent maiden, Clarimonde. Off with it." Still, I hesitated, and she stared at me. "What?" She finally demanded.

"I do not know…." What I looked like. What this armor hid, what I might see in a glass if I happened to find one…like that one, hanging on the wall. She followed my eyes, and moved to lift the glass from the wall and turned it reflective side against the stone. She was still stubborn when she turned back to me, and I sighed in defeat, banishing the conjured gear I had worn without pause for all the years I'd been in Arthas's court, and gazed down at myself. I expected…different. The blade maintained that I had been rebuilt by Arthas, and the necromancers. I did not expect to still have the body of a mother, wider through my hips, heavier in breast and belly than I had been before the children. I was desperately pale, nothing new there, but under my skin, marked in the same purple as a new bruise, runes flowed, rose and fell like cream poured in hot tea. I studied them for a moment but gave up when I felt the rising headache.

"Bath first." She ordered, and I wondered just how badly I did smell. The water was warm, and pleasantly scented. I scrubbed, doing my best to ignore Tirion, who likewise, was doing his absolute best to ignore me.

"Who has the child?" He finally asked, his eyes still studying the intricate patterns on the tapestry next to him. "Your children? Your sons?"

"My…. Husband does, I assume. I gave them to him when I came to Lordaeron's barracks." I stood, toweled off, and shrugged into the gown that Jaina handed me. It felt truly odd after years of conjured, perfectly fitting armor.

"Husband?" He demanded, his gaze on me again now that I was dressed. "Like I said, Clarimonde, the records at Stratholme were destroyed…" And Jaina had not known of Baudoin… Those in the Order who had were purged. Now, it seemed that even the Order's remains did not know who I had given the children over to… "I assume those were the records of any such marriage."

"Baudoin, the Ironfist." I stated. "The younger son is his. We were bound before Anelas was born."

His eyes met Jaina's, and there was sudden comprehension in them. "I will recall Baudoin from Northrend." He stated, "If he'll come. Does Arthas know…?"

I nodded slowly. Yes, Arthas knew. If Baudoin was in Northrend, looking for me, then he was in incredible danger. Arthas had not blinked an eye before destroying the Order; he would target Baudoin now from sheer spite. "Arthas is well aware that Baudoin and I are bound. He knows the little one is Baudoin's born. At one time, Arthas blessed us…" But that was a lifetime ago… Back when Uther lived and Arthas was still Arthas. Back when things still made sense.

"Then I will recall him. Carry him from Northrend bodily if that's what it takes." Tirion's lips twisted in an almost smile. If Baudoin had his mind set looking for me, it might just take that. "So you are comfortable having her here?" The last question was not directed at me, but Jaina.

"You tell me." She answered slowly. "Tirion, Highlord of the Silver Hand. Is she evil? A lost cause? Or just a woman who got into something she couldn't help or control? Is she still Clarimonde, beloved ward of Uther?"

He moved from the shadows of his corner, right up to me, resting his hands on my shoulders and peering into my eyes. It was laughable; I was almost as tall as he… He traced from my hairline to my chin with a fingertip, then sighed in defeat. "She is Clarimonde, daughter of the Hand, of Uther. She did all we could have asked of her, and then some. If she is capable of controlling what has been done to her, she still has a place with us… As she was promised. Welcome home…my sister."

"Bring Baudoin out of Northrend." I stated, and he nodded, half bowing to Jaina and leaving the room. She waited for him to be long gone, before glancing at me again.

"What is it you fear?" She asked, moving to the mirror and picking it up, tilting it to view herself. "Do you not have a certain degree of faith in Arthas? If, as you say…he made you again… Would he fail to make you as you were…or lovelier?"

"The blade says lovelier, but it is biased." It was me, I was it. Its own self esteem was mine… She shook her head, turning the glass to face me, and I gazed upon myself for the first time in years. I had not so changed that I would not be recognized, I looked like a slightly different version of myself… perhaps a little ill or pale, but certainly not _dead_. My hair had darkened slightly, from the brown of my childhood to a near black, thick, dark, flowing. My eyes were still violet, oddly brighter yet darker, as they shone with a lesser version of the power that turned Arthas's eyes into glowing cats' eyes. My features were longer, sharper, more austere, but how much of that was from the loss of my youth? I….

"I look like my father." I noted slowly. "But you are right; it is not as bad as I'd feared." I'd watched the others deteriorate before my eyes, and they were still alive… why should I think that I, dead for months, would fare better?

"I am no necromancer." She shrugged, replacing the glass on the wall where it belonged. "And I have not studied it… it is too dangerous a path for my tastes. But I would say the ones who worked on you did a superlative job. Welcome back, Clarimonde. Now sleep, while the Hand tries to halt the advance of your husband."

It was amazingly easy to sleep, rolled up in blankets in a room that didn't stink of ice and death, lulled by the crash of the ocean and the cry of gulls. I woke to raised voices in the antechamber, two deeper, male voices, growling, and one higher pitched female voice, trying to vainly to soothe. I listened for a long moment… The woman was Jaina… one of the males, Tirion. The other…. _Baudoin_.

"There was no reason to force me from Northrend." Baudoin snapped, and I considered his voice. He'd grown, and not all of it was for the better. He nursed his own private darknesses…my Baudoin was no more. But then, his Clarimonde was likewise. "We are close to securing our position there…"

"I understand that, Baudoin. No one faults your response so far…" Tirion, "But something here at Theramore requires your personal attention."

"There should be nothing here for me." Baudoin again, still high tempered. The old one would have never raised his voice to a Master, especially the Highlord.

"Clarimonde gave herself over to the Order's custody yesterday." Jaina stated gently. "She is no longer in Northrend. She is here, in Theramore."

There was a long silence, and I wished I could see him. How had he taken those words? Did they matter at all? "Clarimonde… is here?" His voice was choked, tense. "She is….safe?"

I flinched. No, I was not safe…I was dead. Would they break the news to him, or would I be forced to? "Baudoin." Tirion sighed. "We knew, going into Northrend, that Arthas's followers gave up their lives to go with him…"

"So she is a death knight." Baudoin hissed. "But she is _here_, safe?"

"She is." Tirion agreed slowly. "Released from her oaths to Arthas, she came back to us of her own free will. I still see her as one of the Hand…"

"_Where is she?_" One, or both of them, must have indicated the door, because it flew open, revealing Baudoin. He was heavier than I remembered, he'd let his hair go long, and his temples were shot with silver. His armor had seen not just better days, but better years, he still wore his original set from the Hand. I sat up in the bed, and he froze in the doorway. "Clarimonde." He breathed, as if he was trying to will himself to believe what he saw. "By the Light… Clair…" He took a step, then another…as if forcing every inch, and then it seemed he could go no farther. "I… was coming for you, Clair." He said, his eyes tortured. "I tried to stand at Brill, but I couldn't. It was yours, and I let it go… I turned and ran so many times… the only thing that kept me going was that you told me to…so long ago. You kept me alive, Clair. You were right, flee when the orders came. Uther's orders were the true ones…"

"And my babies?" I steered him from that…it was dead, it was over, nothing would change it now.

He lifted his brandy eyes to mine, victory lurking in their depths. "Babes no more, Clair. Fine young lads, both of them. My parents have them, safe in Hillsbrad. I could not stay with them… the Order called again, and you…"

I moved to him, and his eyes devoured me. When I was close enough, he wrapped his sword arm around me, resting his forehead in the curve of my shoulder. "Baudoin." I sighed, smoothing his hair. "No fault, no blame. As long as you tell me my babes live safe, I am well."

"You return to the Hand?" He asked, and I nodded. "Then we return to Northrend?" He raised his eyes, warily, to mine. "We go after Arthas?" That was a question he dreaded asking, but it had to be asked. I could feel Tirion's eyes upon me, and farther away, beyond the wall…Jaina's attention.

"Yes, Baudoin." I agreed slowly. "We go after Arthas. Uther…" I puzzled over the words to express it. "Was my father." I placed my hand over my stilled heart. "Here, where it counted."

It is always cold in Icecrown, and I stared across the familiar landscape, my hands light on the dreadcharger's reins. I wore the black armor, piped with blue, same as before, but the blazon that before only I could see on the shield, the blazon of Lordaeron was now clearly visible, white and blue. And again, I wore the tabard of the Hand… "Icecrown." I stated, opening my hand in its direction. I could feel Baudoin's vague misgivings beside me; he still felt it was too much to ask of me….

_"I come for you, my beloved prince." _My heart spoke, and I was not sure if Arthas still heard it. The Scarlet Crusade had been right about some things… Those who had served the Light would be the first ones released, Arthas, my brother, father of my firstborn…would be freed, and my heart would call his name from the altar of my soul.

12/4/07


End file.
